Debate Yesterday

[bcholmes]

The Conservative Party of Canada has been attacking the bill in a fairly organized way. Their points consistently drive home three main ideas:

1. Same-sex marriage is not a rights issue because the Supreme Court hasn't said it is (regardless of lower court rulings)
2. Religious groups will be forced to perform same-sex marriage
3. Canadians are divided on the issue, and therefore we should compromise and stick with "civil unions".

This speech does a pretty decent job addressing those points.

Hon. Paul Harold Macklin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): What strikes me as I have listened to the comments from colleagues and other members of the House, constituents, religious groups, family and friends is that the arguments being made in the House today are not unique. Let me take a brief moment to read a representative comment, "Assuming that there must be some restrictions as to marriage, we may assume also that the laws imposing such restrictions ought not to be changed without some good and clearly ascertained case".

The speaker then went on to say that there is "no sufficient cause for the change now proposed" and that it is not unreasonable to alter the traditional law on marriage as "it is contrary to sound principles to legislate for the very few when such legislation must injuriously affect the welfare and happiness of a much larger number". He expressed concern that the changes in legislation would result in changes to religious practices and concluded that the legislation was too important to be passed quickly without "due time for ascertaining the sentiments of the people generally".

Debate in the House of Commons would be insufficient as his parishioners in Nova Scotia had difficulty following the goings on of the Parliament in distant Ottawa. The time was needed for the populous to get used to the idea. Parliament was rushing the issue.

Many of the arguments made today against extending civil marriage to same sex couples are eerily similar to those arguments. Those comments were drawn from well over 100 years ago, in 1890 when Canada's marriage laws were being amended to allow a widow or widower to marry the sibling of their deceased spouse. Those comments were made by the Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia because of course this marriage was then prohibited by the church.

As would be expected, the bishop expressed concern that this extension of marriage was contrary to the Christian concept of marriage and cited numerous quotations from the Bible. He even raised the spectre of polygamy. A man who was prepared to marry his deceased wife's sister, he said, might next want to marry all of her sisters at the same time, and what would be left to stop this if we allowed him to marry more than one sibling one after the other?

In the year 2005, well over 100 years later, it is striking to me that this House has also heard every one of these arguments anew. I am fascinated by how easy it is to lose perspective as we sometimes lose history.

I hope we come to view these arguments with the same perspective now as the House finally did in 1890 when these changes to Canada's marriage laws were passed.

Nor was 1890 the last and only time that our marriage laws were amended, or these arguments were raised. As recently as 1990 the federal Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Act was amended to extend access to civil marriage to those who were related by blood in second degree relationships, that is, cousins, and uncles or aunts and their nieces and nephews.

In 1990 many experts in genetics were called before a Senate committee to explain that there was no scientific basis for the perception that these relationships resulted in an increased probability of physical or mental impairment. So consistent was the evidence that the amendment passed with very little controversy.

I suspect that many of my fellow members of Parliament did not even know that the law had been changed in this regard. It is another example of the fact that civil marriage is not immutable and has been extended over time to groups previously excluded.

Indeed, Upper Canada passed its first marriage act as early as 1793. The legislation was based on the British Lord Hardwicke's Act and restricted the ability to perform marriages to the Church of England or Anglican ministers. In 1798 after considerable pressure, the ability to perform marriages was extended to ordained Presbyterian, Lutheran and Calvinist ministers, but only where they were certified, which was an extra procedure that was not necessary for the Church of England ministers.

Methodists were specifically left out until 1829 when the legislation was extended to Congregationalist, Baptist, Independent, Mennonite, Tunker, Moravian and Methodist ministers. It was not until 1857 that ministers of every religious denomination, including Jewish rabbis, were authorized to perform marriages. Other provinces and territories followed similar paths.

Civil marriage in Canada was created by legislation fairly early in Canada's west, in British Columbia in 1888, in the Northwest Territories in 1898, in Manitoba in 1932, perhaps more because of the unavailability of religious ministers. Ontario waited until 1950 to introduce civil marriage. Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador introduced it only in the 1960s. In each case there was controversy and concern.

Although Canada never had any laws preventing interracial marriage as there were in the United States, Canadian authors cite instances where authorities resorted to deportation and charges of seduction, as well as instances where community members resorted to torture and even murder to prevent such unnatural unions. Happily, this aspect of marriage has changed.

Similar arguments were put forward with regard to divorce laws. One member of Parliament in 1894 said:

Every Catholic is opposed... and yet the Protestant majority of this House want to impose the law upon us in this matter.... Who may tell what the future keeps in store for us?

Those words are from a distinguished member of the House, the hon. Hormidas Jeannotte, uttered in 1894 in the context of a debate on the bill of divorce for one James St.-George Dillon.

Prior to the passage of Canada's first Divorce Act in 1968, individual bills were needed to grant divorces. Certainly the concerns uttered then are again similar to those that we have heard more recently.

Senator Bellerose said in a debate in the Senate on the same bill that if divorce were granted it would "encourage the whole population of Montreal and of the province of Quebec...to separate from their wives in order to achieve the same end". He insisted that it would be a travesty if Parliament passed the bill because "it was understood at the time of Confederation that divorce would not be granted to Catholics".

Indeed these arguments were raised in almost every recorded debate on any change to Canadian laws on marriage or divorce and yet, as we can all plainly see, religious practices have changed very little. Some religious groups still do not recognize divorce, and the change in the civil law does not force them to do so.

Some religious groups still do not allow marriage between first cousins, and the change in the civil law does not force them to do so. In the same way, the passage of Bill C-38 would not force religious groups who do not recognize marriage between same sex partners to do so.

[...]

I was concerned to hear the opposition make reference to the fact that this is not about human rights, that there are no instances of real discrimination here with regard to this group. With respect, that is a denial of history and a denial of fact. I have heard from parents, as I am sure have a number of members, sad and terrible stories about children who have committed suicide because they were afraid of telling their parents about their sexual orientation, of young people cast off by their families, of schoolyard taunting and harassment, of violence directed against people only because they were suspected of being gay.

No purpose is served by comparing the history of disadvantage, of discrimination and of exclusion of different minority groups. I will be supporting this bill because I believe in the eradication of discrimination for all minority groups, and in the equal importance of the protection of the freedom of religion. The government bill acts responsibly and carefully to balance full respect for equality and the freedom of religion, basic Canadian values of such importance that they are entrenched as part of our Constitution, forever limiting the power of this House.

The opposition says that this bill should not pass because half of Canadians are not in support. I realize that Canadians are evenly divided on this issue, but what about those who are in favour? Should those opposed ask the House to turn back the hands of time, to ignore the fact that the law has already changed in eight provinces and territories because the courts have made binding decisions that limiting civil marriage to opposite sex couples is a violation of our Constitution?

Our own history shows us that those opposed will be fully protected from these changes. They will not touch their lives unless they choose to have it happen. Religious groups will retain the full ability to make their own decisions about whether to recognize these legal changes in the same way they already have with earlier changes to the civil law on marriage and divorce.

However the House has a duty, not only to those opposed but to those in favour, not only to those religious groups who do not wish to perform same sex marriages but also to those who do.

In the discussions surrounding the 1968 Divorce Act, religious groups took sides. Some urged the government not to pass the civil divorce law for Canada fearing the impact on religious practice and others who urged the government to go further and include a ground for divorce based solely on marital breakdown.

Now as then, it falls to the civil authority to legislate in a way that allows all religious groups to continue with their beliefs. The way to do that here is to pass this law, allowing religions to decide this issue for themselves and for their communities.

I respectfully submit that the bill represents the great Canadian compromise and I would urge all members to support the bill.

One point that has been brought up is that the Conservatives appear to be trying to stretch out the debate. At one point, Richard Marceau nicely smacked them down:

Mr. Richard Marceau: Madam Speaker, I am asking for rigour in this debate. We cannot, on one hand, ask why so much time is being spent on this subject and complain about it, as the Conservatives are doing, and on the other, ensure that 99 members will not speak just once but rather twice, by using, as they are, a dilatory tactic.

People cannot talk out of both sides of their mouths. In my experience, the Conservative Party, all too often in cases concerning the rights of same sex couples or homosexuals, resorts to such rhetoric.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I just read 'Hansard' as 'Hamstered'. I need more coffee.