Same-sex marriage legal in Manitoba

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally posted by peter12+Sep 16 2004, 04:41 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (peter12 @ Sep 16 2004, 04:41 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Good lord you have to be kidding me. Who the hell is "Dr. Dobson"?

Focus on the Family and that deal. Religious right, struck me as quite the zealot.
Said that gay marriage would lead to men marrying donkeys, same old sh*t.

Traditional family would be in jeopardy, bad thing.

I agree with him that the tearing apart of the traditional family is bad, just that that happened about 2000 years ago. [/b][/quote]
Thanks Peter12.

I looked him up and he's got his own radio show and he's the head of some numbskull organization or other. Big news today is that they are trying for a boycott of Procter and Gamble because they "are against discrimination" -- that's how it was put.

The party line is "it will ruin traditional marriage". That one always makes me scratch my head. Whose marriage is going to be ruined by this? Hands up all you married people who think your marriage will fall apart if guys can marry guys. It makes me think these anti-gay types are quite worried about their own marriage if they think it could fall apart that easily.

[FlamesAddiction]

From ebaum's:

[???]

really what is the big freaking deal here? does anyone have any close friends that are gay? and i mean close as "hey lets go out for a drink" close not "i know him through my sister"close. im friends with a bunch of gay people {thats what ya get for dating a hair stylist} but once you get to know the people and realize that they are good people, topics like this become very strange.
what i mean is they have a bit of "whites only" feel to them but the sign now reads "no queers". just odd how we dont see the similarities and take care of this before we have to look back in shame 50 years from now.

NOTE:im not trying to say homos have it as bad as black people did just some things are close and we are letting history repeat it self

example: nigge* to ######o*
reduced rights to gays{the mariage thing} , no rights to blacks
lynching to gay bashing
white guy gets a job before a black guy, dont ask policy in us army

so my point is, legalize gay mariage now, dont change it to something else and keep this counrty great. let the homos melt in the melting pot.

my 2 cents .
{i got a feeling im offending some people, but thats not my intention,}

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by troutman@Sep 16 2004, 03:23 PM
I don't see how gay marriage is onconstitutional

Courts in four provinces have ruled it is unconstitutional. The precedent is established.

Yard said precedents set in other British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec weighed heavily in his decision. He noted that no less than 12 judges in Canada have been asked to consider the issue.

"The cumulative effect and the overwhelming effect of that judicial authority is to the effect that the traditional definition of marriage is no longer constitutionally valid in view of the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," he said.

People of the same sex are being denied a right available to people of the opposite sex. This infringes s. 15 of the Charter.

Just because courts in 4 provinces rule something unconstitutional doesn't mean that the supreme court is going to agree. What if BC and three other provinces got together and said that making POT illegal was unconstitutional?? I think you could make a good arguement for that.

Some could claim it's a freedom of choice or expression issue. Provinces have tried to do many things that the supreme court strikes down (God, I'm sure Quebec has something struck down every couple of months).

Just to clarify, I'm just trying to point out the other side of the arguement here, my personal feeling is that I supppose I support gay marriage in everything but name.
Why shouldn't gay people have the same rights as a maried couple. That is to say as far as property laws etc go. You wanna have a "Civil union" or whatever you call it, and have your partner have rights to work benefits, inheretance and stuff like that sure, it's not a bad idea.


Lookout, whole new argement starting below.
However, I do draw the line at things like adoption. I do not think it's appropriate for two men, or two women to raise a child. The case is certainly different with parents who find out they are gay after the fact, because there is still a male and female influence in the childs life. For an adopted child to grow up in an all male or all female household is not the idea situation. I'm not claiming that the child will turn out gay his or herself, but it's life will be missing a kind of balance that most children grow up with. This will of course be disputed with the what about children with single parents arguement, but to that I say, you can't really argue that a single parent family is the ideal situation (monetary factors aside), so if something is lacking from this situation, as it would be in a gay/lesbian parent home, then how can you support putting a child into a home which you clearly believe to be less than idea.

I'm rushing and my thoughts are possibly not clear, and I'm not really arugeing wiht anyone at this point, but that's my opinion.

[Clarkey]

You guys aren't getting it, the real problem with allowing gay marriage is that if you do allow it you don't know what will come next. If they are allowed to get married, what would be stopping gay people from becoming doctors, lawyers and professionals? It's a scary precedent to set.

[calf]

Originally posted by Clarkey@Sep 16 2004, 05:07 PM
You guys aren't getting it, the real problem with allowing gay marriage is that if you do allow it you don't know what will come next. If they are allowed to get married, what would be stopping gay people from becoming doctors, lawyers and professionals? It's a scary precedent to set.

Wow...would they be allowed to vote too?

[CaramonLS]

Originally posted by Cube Inmate@Sep 16 2004, 09:52 PM


Before I get flamed, I'll reiterate: I see no problem with a civil union that's legally equivalent to marriage in the eyes of the government. Just don't try to re-define a term that's been around for centuries.

Ding ding ding.

This is exact how I feel.

[wittynickname]

Originally posted by calf@Sep 16 2004, 03:37 PM
Thorny issue.

Personally, I wish the government would indoctrine a seperation of church and state, which isn't the case in Canada. The word marriage is, IMHO, a religious word - it has several different religious connotations, is a word developed by different religions, which have been around longer than governments. I can totally see how churches get all riled up when 'gay marriage' gets thrown around, because that's their institution and goes against their beliefs - it's their right. If a certain church believes gay marriage is a-ok, then that's their right too.

What I think the government should do is instead of having 'marriage' licenses (a religious term), they should have 'civil unions' (or something along those lines) for all couples, gay and straight. Give all couples the same rights they'd have if they had a marriage license now.

My thoughts

Supposedly there IS a separation of court and state in the US, and yet this is still a problem here.

There are so many other, far more horrific things in the world, and this country is concerned about making sure two consenting adults who are in love with each other from being able to marry. Ridiculous.

[habernac]

Originally posted by peter12@Sep 16 2004, 03:01 PM
It kind of proves how pathetic our society can be when we get all worked up over this. How about turning all the nuts out there to some more important issues. Global poverty? Genocide? Terrorism?

Instead all we hear about is gay marriege, pros/cons.

You've hit the nail on the head.

[Cube Inmate]

Originally posted by troutman@Sep 16 2004, 04:24 PM
Marriage is not an individual right, it's a specific type of contract available to a man and a woman who agree to enter into that contract. If marriage is a right under the constitution, then we should have a lot of single, 40-year-old losers going to the courts to demand that right be upheld, even though they can't find someone willing to marry them.

Faulty logic. Does not compute. The 40-year-old-loser is different; he has no-one willing to enter into a marraige with him. Two gay people willing to enter into a marriage is totally different.

Maybe I'll come up with a more useful illustration, because I'll admit that my previous analogy (single loser) sounds ridiculous. The point of that, as I'll demonstrate below, is that we Canadians have been conditioned to believe that anytime someone tells us we can't do something, it's somehow a violation of a fundamental right. In this case, it's not.

Starting from the constitution:

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Every consenting adult has the right to marry another person of the opposite sex, and to receive the benefits resulting from that decision. This doesn't say that one is entitled to be married, however, if the conditions for a marriage to happen can't be produced. As an analogy of this legal consideration -- NOT the moral considerations, which I don't believe are a problem -- consider the case of a redneck who wants to marry his cousin. By law, this man and woman can't be married...but you'll never hear the courts say it's a violation of their rights. It's simply a restriction that society has placed on the marriage contract. Now, you'll argue that we prohibit cousins from marrying because of the possible genetic issues with their children. We have decided, as a society, that it's a justifiable violation of their right to marry based on the better good of society and their unborn mutant-children. Agreed.

Well how about polygamy? I'm not familiar with any case law relating to this, but if it can be successfully argued that the requirement of a "man and a woman" can be overturned, as we're seeing in many provinces, why can't the other significant condition -- "to the exclusion of all others" -- be overturned? It sounds like a pretty arbitrary distinction to say that marriage can only occur between two people when you've got 3 or more consenting adults who want to live as man and wife...and wife. How is this a justifiable violation of their individual rights? In this case, it's an arbitrary decision by our society that polygamy doesn't fit within our definition of marriage. We made a similar arbitrary distinction many centuries ago that marriage is a man and a woman...and aside from a few gay people trying to change that definition right now, Canadians still feel that you should be able to find a husband and a wife in what is called a "marriage."

So to sum up...

I'm not really arguing that 2 people should be denied the right to all the legal benefits and responsibilities that come with marriage; in fact, I would support a "civil union" type of thing. I'm just tired of people trying to use the Charter of Rights to change the ancient definition of marriage. The charter right to equality does not entitle one to marry anyone under any circumstances. I've illustrated that with my two examples above.

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I dunno why I bother arguing though anymore. Most people don't care about the fact that our unelected judges are re-writing the law. :wacko:

[Daradon]

I hear a lot of people saying they support everything but the name 'marriage'. So this whole argument is over a word? I don't get it. And before anyone re-expains that marrige is a religious term (I get the argument) I would say:

1. For many people it isn't a religious term. In fact many marriages aren't even done in church anymore. And how many religiously sanctioned marriages fail? I mean, some of them you can even tell that the whole 'religious aspect' meant nothing to them.

2. As we evolve, so must our terms. Theres no reason why a meaning of a word can't evolve.

3. There are a few churchs, and a religion or two that DOES allow gay marriages. Why must we always define things in the Christian or Christian/Catholic way?

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally posted by Cube Inmate+Sep 16 2004, 11:25 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cube Inmate @ Sep 16 2004, 11:25 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-troutman@Sep 16 2004, 04:24 PM
Marriage is not an individual right, it's a specific type of contract available to a man and a woman who agree to enter into that contract. If marriage is a right under the constitution, then we should have a lot of single, 40-year-old losers going to the courts to demand that right be upheld, even though they can't find someone willing to marry them.

Faulty logic. Does not compute. The 40-year-old-loser is different; he has no-one willing to enter into a marraige with him. Two gay people willing to enter into a marriage is totally different.

Maybe I'll come up with a more useful illustration, because I'll admit that my previous analogy (single loser) sounds ridiculous. The point of that, as I'll demonstrate below, is that we Canadians have been conditioned to believe that anytime someone tells us we can't do something, it's somehow a violation of a fundamental right. In this case, it's not.

Starting from the constitution:

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Every consenting adult has the right to marry another person of the opposite sex, and to receive the benefits resulting from that decision. This doesn't say that one is entitled to be married, however, if the conditions for a marriage to happen can't be produced. As an analogy of this legal consideration -- NOT the moral considerations, which I don't believe are a problem -- consider the case of a redneck who wants to marry his cousin. By law, this man and woman can't be married...but you'll never hear the courts say it's a violation of their rights. It's simply a restriction that society has placed on the marriage contract. Now, you'll argue that we prohibit cousins from marrying because of the possible genetic issues with their children. We have decided, as a society, that it's a justifiable violation of their right to marry based on the better good of society and their unborn mutant-children. Agreed.

Well how about polygamy? I'm not familiar with any case law relating to this, but if it can be successfully argued that the requirement of a "man and a woman" can be overturned, as we're seeing in many provinces, why can't the other significant condition -- "to the exclusion of all others" -- be overturned? It sounds like a pretty arbitrary distinction to say that marriage can only occur between two people when you've got 3 or more consenting adults who want to live as man and wife...and wife. How is this a justifiable violation of their individual rights? In this case, it's an arbitrary decision by our society that polygamy doesn't fit within our definition of marriage. We made a similar arbitrary distinction many centuries ago that marriage is a man and a woman...and aside from a few gay people trying to change that definition right now, Canadians still feel that you should be able to find a husband and a wife in what is called a "marriage."

So to sum up...

I'm not really arguing that 2 people should be denied the right to all the legal benefits and responsibilities that come with marriage; in fact, I would support a "civil union" type of thing. I'm just tired of people trying to use the Charter of Rights to change the ancient definition of marriage. The charter right to equality does not entitle one to marry anyone under any circumstances. I've illustrated that with my two examples above.

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I dunno why I bother arguing though anymore. Most people don't care about the fact that our unelected judges are re-writing the law. :wacko: [/b][/quote]
Really I don't get the "well if we let the queers do it then polygamists are next and after that it's kissin' cousins" argument.

Why should gay people be punished for what someone else might do. Polygamists and whoever else can fight their own marriage battles if they want to. Denying rights to one group because someone else may become emboldened (or embiggened) by them doesn't really wash.

[Frank the Tank]

I don't understand the hang-up with the actual word "marriage". I am an athiest through and through. I don't believe in religion whatsoever in any way shape or form. When my wife and i are out and people ask us if we are married I say yes, we are "married". If two gay people, who beleive in god, want to get married, don't they have more of a right than I do? Just because I'm heterosexual I win by default? Sorry, I just can't buy into that thinking.