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Originally posted by Cube Inmate@Oct 21 2005, 12:48 PM
Furthermore, according to the SCC decision cited by tranny, those lower courts were legally wrong. It sounds like the SCC clearly decided that the definition of "marriage" was constitutional in 1995, and hasn't ruled on it since. I understand that times can change, but it's not up to the lower courts to change things--they're supposed to abide by the precedent of superior courts until the opinion of the superior courts changes by way of appeal.
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The problem is that T99's quote was incomplete and misleading.
Here's the complete quote:
Quote:
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But its ultimate raison d'être transcends all of these and is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that heterosexual couples have the unique ability to procreate, that most children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship. In this sense, marriage is by nature heterosexual. It would be possible to legally define marriage to include homosexual couples, but this would not change the biological and social realities that underlie the traditional marriage
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LaForest was speaking to the cultural assumptions underlying the
tradition of marriage, not to the
law of marriage in Canada, which must comform to the Charter.
And in any case, he was only speaking for 4 judges of the 9 who sat on that case, so his comments on that issue were not "binding" (for that and other reasons).