Same Sex "Marriage" and Political Repression

Canada has chosen to be the experiment ground for same-sex "marriage" in North America. How is this great initiative for ending repression working out?

In a link first posted in a comment by Mike S., we read this from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

"Some people argue that same-sex marriage wouldn't change anybody else's marriage but merely expand the institution to provide equal rights for all.

"Canada made same-sex marriage the law of the land in June. What's happened there in recent months suggests a different story."

What is this different story?

"When male-female marriage and same-sex marriage become equal in the eyes of the law, treating them differently becomes discrimination. In Canada, 'privileging' male-female marriage in any way is now a violation of human rights. According to Henry [Catholic Bishop of Calgary], 'Canadians who believe in the historic definition of marriage, who believe that children need a mother and father, are now the legal equivalent of racists.'"

. . . .

"In British Columbia, teacher Chris Kempling has been found guilty -- and disciplined -- for defending male-female marriage in newspaper opinion pieces. Henry himself has been hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal for promoting traditional marriage in his pastoral letters. 'The human rights tribunals have become like thought police,' he says. 'In Canada, you can now use the coercive powers of the state to silence opposition.'"

It's fair to conclude that same sex "marriage" has not ended repression. I don't know about Canada, but I would ask American readers: which is a more basic right in our country, the right to free speech, or the right for men to marry men and for women to marry women? I fear this coming south of the border.

Several months ago Gordon Phelps wrote a prominently published opinion piece to say, "We gays just want a few rights." I argued then that no matter how little gays say they want, when you mess with a basic social structure like marriage and the family, results will spin out of control. Phelps may not want gay rights to progress to the point of locking up people who disagree. (There probably are fringe activists who would want it to go that far, but I'll assume they're a minority.)

The point is that when disagreeing with a person's choices becomes the equivalent of racism, and with hate crimes loosely defined as they are, the result is almost inevitable. Changing the social definition of marriage in Canada has resulted in serious speech repression. (It's cropping up in the U.S. also.) Also, as I wrote before (the link already referenced), changing the meaning of marriage can hardly be stopped once it gets started. Not long ago in the Netherlands a three-person "marriage" was performed.

Slippery-slope arguments are not necessarily valid, but they can be. Canada and the Netherlands demonstrate that this time, they're exactly on track.

Posted: Tue - November 8, 2005 at 10:00 AM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Same Sex "Marriage" and Political Repression

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson