I really don't much like you anonymous commentators; so I am going to treat these last remarks as coming from the same person.
"Cardinal, I know of no one in this country who has proposed denying your church - or any other - the right to be as exclusive in its offering of rites as it chooses to be."
Give the government -- or, more likely, the courts -- time. No one is proposing it -- yet.
As I think I said before, when that day comes, you'll find me lined up with you.
Is the Church being unduly paranoid? So far, its schools have been told that they cannot prevent a gay student from attending a school-sponsored prom with his boyfriend, although his "lifestyle" is clearly contrary to Church teaching (despite the nonsense on that point in the relevant court decision).
I don't know what "nonsense" you're talking about.
I do know that the parochial school system in Ontario and some other provinces is an unfortunate legacy of the 1867 constitution.
As soon as the Catholic church stops taking public money to run their school system, I will join it in its objection to having to live by this country's secular rules.
Let's look at the matter this way. The advocates of the change to the definition of marriage have said again and again that this is a civil rights question, no different from the questions asked and answered by the civil rights movement in the United States in the 50s and 60s. Accepting that the analogy is apposite, ask yourself how long would we tolerate a church that refused to baptize black babies? How long would we permit it to continue to enjoy tax-exempt status?
That's an interesting question, and possibly relevant.
Why should any church receive government/public funding? Leaving aside constitutional legacy, why should Wiccans, or Catholics, or Muslims, or the Church of Bob, be subsidized by a public who does not believe in their creeds?
For what it's worth, I don't think that racist churches should be so subsidized. Nor do a I think churches that discriminate against gays should be so subsidized.
Interestingly, the real ground for changing the definition of marriage appears to be that _not_ to do so would impose psychological discomfort.
That's simply not true.
The "real grounds for changing the definition of marriage" comes from the (entirely healthy) desire of gays to be treated (by the state) as full and equal citizens.
Being told that one's relationships are of a different (and lesser) order is to be told that one is of a different and lesser order. Symbols do matter. If you really mean that a "civil union" is the same as "marriage", then the state has to acknowledge that they are the same. To do otherwise is to establish a 2-class system, wherein gays are of a lesser order than straights.
Why not simply change the law to recognize "civil unions", a separate but equal legal category?
This is a reasonable option, though I suspect that politically, it is a non-starter.
What you (whoever the fuck you are) are proposing is that the state would not acknowledge "marriage" at all. That the state would acknowledge "civil unions" - gay, straight, whatever - but that marriage itself, would have no legal meaning.
Personally, I have no problem with that. The Roman Catholic Church could bless (legally meaningless) straight marriages and other churches could bless (just as legally meaningless) same-sex marriages.
Since I don't belong to any church, and don't want to, this works for me. How that would play out in international law, I'm not so sure.
So long as we, as a society, think the state has any business at all defining "marriage", the state has to treat all religions the same.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Geoff strikes again! Again!
Date: 2005-02-04 01:21 am (UTC)"Cardinal, I know of no one in this country who has proposed denying your church - or any other - the right to be as exclusive in its offering of rites as it chooses to be."
Give the government -- or, more likely, the courts -- time. No one is proposing it -- yet.
As I think I said before, when that day comes, you'll find me lined up with you.
Is the Church being unduly paranoid? So far, its schools have been told that they cannot prevent a gay student from attending a school-sponsored prom with his boyfriend, although his "lifestyle" is clearly contrary to Church teaching (despite the nonsense on that point in the relevant court decision).
I don't know what "nonsense" you're talking about.
I do know that the parochial school system in Ontario and some other provinces is an unfortunate legacy of the 1867 constitution.
As soon as the Catholic church stops taking public money to run their school system, I will join it in its objection to having to live by this country's secular rules.
Let's look at the matter this way. The advocates of the change to the definition of marriage have said again and again that this is a civil rights question, no different from the questions asked and answered by the civil rights movement in the United States in the 50s and 60s. Accepting that the analogy is apposite, ask yourself how long would we tolerate a church that refused to baptize black babies? How long would we permit it to continue to enjoy tax-exempt status?
That's an interesting question, and possibly relevant.
Why should any church receive government/public funding? Leaving aside constitutional legacy, why should Wiccans, or Catholics, or Muslims, or the Church of Bob, be subsidized by a public who does not believe in their creeds?
For what it's worth, I don't think that racist churches should be so subsidized. Nor do a I think churches that discriminate against gays should be so subsidized.
Interestingly, the real ground for changing the definition of marriage appears to be that _not_ to do so would impose psychological discomfort.
That's simply not true.
The "real grounds for changing the definition of marriage" comes from the (entirely healthy) desire of gays to be treated (by the state) as full and equal citizens.
Being told that one's relationships are of a different (and lesser) order is to be told that one is of a different and lesser order. Symbols do matter. If you really mean that a "civil union" is the same as "marriage", then the state has to acknowledge that they are the same. To do otherwise is to establish a 2-class system, wherein gays are of a lesser order than straights.
Why not simply change the law to recognize "civil unions", a separate but equal legal category?
This is a reasonable option, though I suspect that politically, it is a non-starter.
What you (whoever the fuck you are) are proposing is that the state would not acknowledge "marriage" at all. That the state would acknowledge "civil unions" - gay, straight, whatever - but that marriage itself, would have no legal meaning.
Personally, I have no problem with that. The Roman Catholic Church could bless (legally meaningless) straight marriages and other churches could bless (just as legally meaningless) same-sex marriages.
Since I don't belong to any church, and don't want to, this works for me. How that would play out in international law, I'm not so sure.
So long as we, as a society, think the state has any business at all defining "marriage", the state has to treat all religions the same.