Most annoyingly, it seems that Canada’s Conservative Party is trotting out gay marriage, which is presently legal in Canada, for new Parliamentary debate.
As I have written before, Parliament does not have the right to stop gay people from getting married. The right to not suffer discrimination supersedes the authority of Parliament to legislate, by virtue of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is not a right that can be restricted in keeping with “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” While the Notwithstanding Clause could be used to nullify that legality, doing so would be profoundly illiberal.
The whole thing is likely to be a vote-loser for the Tories, since even Canadians who have problems with gay marriage now generally consider the matter settled. Hopefully, the Tories will take some well-deserved flak for this political theatre and all parties will realize that they should leave the matter as it stands in the future.
My previous entries on this are here: 1 February 2006 and 3 June 2006.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I happen to disagree on the argument, though agree on the result. The short version of my point is that Parliament has the right to legislate a def’n of marriage however they choose and that a declaration that marriage is between a man a woman would not violate the equality rights in s15. My argument turns on s15 jurisprudence and application of the Charter. And I’ll get into it in a day or so (on my blog) once I’m into studying for Charter.
That having been said, I see no good reason to exclude homosexuals from the institution of marriage. Allowing gay marriage is good policy. Similarly, to exclude them is bad policy.
Personally, I hope this that will deter people from voting for Harper and his party, who are proposing exceptionally poor policy on a number of other issues as well (notably, the environment & Canada’s Kyoto commitments). On the other hand, the Minister for International Trade (supposedly the Vancouver representative in the Cabinet) wasn’t elected as a Conservative anyway, so perhaps bribery and deception will see them through. Bastards.
Tim,
I would have written more comprehensive reasoning, but I was dragged out of the internet cafe by hungry relatives. I look forward to reading what you write on this matter.
Sarah,
The next election is certainly going to be an interesting one, though probably less so than if Ignatieff had won the Liberal leadership.
In a post in February, you wrote: “The way to do that may be to placate your socially conservative supporters with a few token gestures, while actually working to stay close to the political centre.”
I think Harper’s actually trying to do this. I think it would’ve been political suicide for him on the conservative right if he had failed to revisit the issue. There aren’t that all that many of them in Canada, but when they vote for you, it’s hard to ignore them. Easier to keep them than to convince new voters to vote for you.
That said, I wasn’t for re-opening the debate. But I think Harper did it with as little fanfare as he could. Now he can claim he tried but didn’t have enough MPs to his supporters on the right, and say that he didn’t do anything bad to the voters in the political center. It wasn’t pretty necessarily but I think he aquitted himself fairly well. It keeps with the theme of delivering on what he promised (which he seems very much at pains to do).
The next election will be fought on Quebec and the environment. I don’t see socially conservatism being a big theme. Harper’s going to have been PM for a year, and since nothing catastrophic has happened, any attempt to paint him as a woman-hating, children-eating purple monster will ultimately backfire on the Liberals - à la “soldiers in our cities” ads from ‘06. Dion and the Liberals are going to have to attack Harper’s record, not the person.
Why is gay rights such a defining issue for so many liberals? The short answer is moral clarity. I would argue that the struggle to overcome official discrimination against minorities is the ethical autobiography of American liberalism. It is the narrative that explains, more than any other, the purpose of liberalism, past, present and future. The issue of gay rights fits perfectly into that narrative.
Have a look at this: Mass. proposed gay marriage ban advances.
California Supreme Court rules for same-sex marriage
By Cory Doctorow on Civlib
Yesterday, the California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that same-sex marriage is legal, on the basis of a strict-scrutiny analysis of the Constitution. This will make it essentially impossible for California to keep any kind of anti-gay-marriage laws on its books, and could lead to other states abolishing their laws discriminating against gay marriage.