Canada shelves Gay marriage legislation.

[Ming]

Sorry BK... I don't see any logical reasons being provided by you. Just the same ole same ole... just religious knee jerk reactions and nothing based in real logic. And that is fine... but don't claim there is any logic involved, just call it what it is... your religious beliefs.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Asher:

It's one of the options in front of parliament. The problem with this is that society would no longer be able to provide benefits to married couples.

What gives you that idea? The same benefits would be applied to "domestic partnerships" rather than "married people". This includes people who are married before the church, and also those who have not married before any church but registered their domestic partnership.

[mindseye]

Sadly, I received no reply from Ben Kenobi, so please forgive me for the re-post.
==================================

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

You have precisely the same rights as I do, to marry a woman of your choice, should she also consent.

I can't believe anyone would would field this absurdity around here, not once ... but twice!

I gotta question for you:

Would you be satisfied if the gov't said you could marry anyone you wanted as long as he was a man? Do you think that you could, as you put it, "control your sexual urges" towards women, and instead take a man's hand at the altar? And enjoy that honeymoon? And set up a life-long love nest with him? Could you really do that? I'm not kidding here, I want to know.

Therefore, gay marriage will reduce the birthrate.

Still rolling over this one. If only that were true, please, somebody, inform the leadership of China!

Seriously, do you think that if a couple is considering having kids, their decision will be influenced by whether or not lesbians can marry in their country?

it is not like gay people cannot have children, they are fertile, but have chosen not to exercise these capacities.

You aren't aware that some gay people (male and female) sire children?

Why is homosexuality biological?

Well, for starters, the animal world is rife with it, especially mammals. Hard to imagine that those male giraffes screwing each other are acting on something other than biological impetus.

Rather than letting a small segment of society decide, be they judges or priests, let everyone have their say.

Basic civil rights should never, ever be decided through popularity polls.

And rights don't get much more basic than the right to marry, a right most would consider far more important than the right to vote.

Most Americans were against interracial marriage when it was legalized in 1967. Ben, do you think the US should have waited until the general population voted its approval before allowing interracial couples to wed?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So why have civil marriage at all, if marriage is of no concern to the state?

Recognising marriages is the business of the state. Christian marriages, Buddhist marriages, Muslim marriages, Shinto marriages, Animist marriages, Hindu marriages, and civil marriages... In short, that people get married is the business of the state, but under what God or in what church they got married is none of their Gosh-darned business.

We have marriages for every flavour under the sun. Do you have a problem with any of those? Do you have a problem with seniors getting married? The mentally challenged? Convicts? Why can everyone else get married with nary a whimper from your camp, but this issue brings out the rottweiler in you?

Is it because your dogma leads you to oppose it? Then I would ask what force your dogma should rightfully have over those who do not share it?

Are you arguing that fundamentalist Christian dogma should be the law of the land in Canada?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
No, but Christians whose belief system prohibits homosexuality cannot just dump those beliefs. Liberalism pretends that they can just lay them aside or that we can just ignore them when in fact Liberalism cannot really tolerate the intolerant without betraying its own principles.

Or to put it another way: Liberalism likes to pretend that it is "value free" and does not discriminate against religious belief. But it does - according to Liberalism, universalist beliefs about the wrongness of homosexuality are "bad beliefs" since they express a desire to overturn liberalism itself.

The conflict between a liberal state and fundamentalist beliefs cannot be reconciled, no matter how much we praise religious freedom.

You have an interesting point, but...

No church or clergyman (person) is being forced to participate in same sex marriages, nor would they be. At the same time, it is not up to some Christians to accept or reject what is happening in the next Church on a matter of faith. It is simply none of their business.

Furthermore, Christians put aside their belief systems everyday when they emerge from their churches and homes to mingle with the rest of society, and sometimes within those churches and homes. So do Muslims. Our country does not accept stoning people for religious offences, nor for any other reason for that matter. Our country also does not allow for marriages to multiple people. The homosexual act, or state of being, itself is barred from being a basis for descrimination in employment, housing, and the delivery of goods and services, no matter what your religious views may be.

Now, I have proven your point for you I suppose, for Liberalism is a cruel mistress for the close minded and bigoted of society. It must be truely galling. Truely, intolerance will not be tolerated in general society.

However, Liberalism never has been value free. It is tolerance that is its core value (as it stands today), and I think that Canada is perfectly capable of finding the way towards respecting the views of Catholics, who will never be required to perform a ceremony for a gay or a divorced couple, while recognising the marriages of gay and divorced people in the United Church. Liberally, of course.