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| Same-sex marriage is about Human Rights and Equality? Supreme court of Canada is to answer... |
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What happened is that last June same-sex marriages became legal and couples started to actually get married. There was television footage on six’ clock separate time news where people were seeing same-sex couples getting married some of them wearing traditional white dresses, the tuxedoes and having confetti’s and drinking Champaign and kissing each other. Same-sex couples kissing on prime-time television! , - that had not been seen very frequently. That woke up lots of people to this reality. Before they didn't even give a thought to a same-sex couple getting married, now all the sudden they have realized, : why , well why not? And that was a process that was evolutionary and may be revolutionary. As we are speaking there are over 3 thousand couples that have married in Canada, and you know the sky isn't falling, the society has not stopped functioning and 'Despite the predictions of disaster, there has been no harmful impact on opposite-sex marriage, it is still popular.
"all provinces and territories already allow adoption by qualified gay and lesbian Canadians"
-Apparently having 18 judges in row in support of same-sex marriages is a strong argument, but along the way the issue has strong opponents. What have they brought to Supreme court?
The opposition kept changing its major criticism, initially the attack was that opening marriage to people of the same gender would open way to polygamy - we responded to that..."The draft bill specially restricts the definition of marriage to two persons to the exclusion of all others. The practice of polygamy, bigamy and incest are criminal offences in Canada. This will not change"."It's not good enough to say this is the case before us and we don't have to wonder what's down the road," say opponents "You cannot come to a fork in the road ... and say we're going to go down this road but we don't know where it ends."
Second line of argument came through suggesting that if civil marriage was changed when religious marriage would be affected. The churches would be forced to perform same-sex marriages. If the definition of marriage is changed and constitutionalized as to include same-sex marriage it will be open season on religious institutions.
-What about a religious official who performs civil marriages?
The governments proposed legislation extending civil marriage to same-sex couples explicitly states that “nothing in this Act affects the freedom of officials of religious groups to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs”. Furthermore the mentioned Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides a constitutional protection for any religious officials who refused on religious grounds, to perform a same-sex marriage. It would be a violation for the state to coerce a minister, rabbi, priest … to perform a marriage that was contrary to his or her religious beliefs.
-Won't allowing same-sex couples to marry lead to adoption by some same-sex couples?
This is one of frequently asked question with regard to civil marriage and the Legal Recognition of Same-sex Unions. The other was about harming the children. .. Marriage is all about children, all about procreation. But to Supreme court justices To reduce the whole thing to procreation seems an oversimplification for Supreme Court Judges. Do we have facts before us to say one form of stable relationship is a better environment for children ... the psychological impact on children, for example?" asked Justice Rosalie Abella. The alleged social science evidence to be "all over the map on this." is no longer convincing. Adoption is a separate issue that falls under provincial law, and all provinces and territories already allow adoption by qualified gay and lesbian Canadians. The test is whether the adoptive parent or parents will provide a loving and stable household. Canadian children are already being raised in a wide variety of households - married parents, common law couples, lone parents, divorced parents, remarried parents, blended families, same-sex parents and so on. The Government has a duty to support all of these children and their families.
Now I think the opponents have exhausted their arguments. Imagine 18 judges in a row have ruled against them. Judging by the Supreme court justices. the opposition brought up the same arguments and from what i saw sitting in the court room the judges were extremely skeptical, they weren't buying them they weren't accepting that these arguments really value. I think that they're losing the battle, they have lost it in the courts, losing it in the public opinion, the support is growing and they are in the process of losing it on the political ground. So this is our next major focus. To make sure that when Sc expresses positive opinion what we expect it to do, the Parliament changes the Legislation.
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Olexi
Ukrainian student, journalist and a planetary citizen. I invite you to take a look at Central's Europe largest state- Ukraine through Olexi-tinted spectacles. Somewhat approaching unbiased subjectivity :)
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