There are those who start with the hatred, and move on to the arguments.
There are others who start by hearing the arguments, and move on to the hatred.
sigh…
From The Globe and Mail.
Harper wouldn’t say what amendments he would make.
I’m no fan of hate speech law, but the singling out of gays and lesbians from it is rather disturbing. Harper complains that religious schools who preach homophobia (and remember that this law is meant to stop people from inciting hatred and violence, not prevent theological musings on the nature of sin) could lose their tax-exempt status, or public funding.
But why should the government pay for an “educational” institution that encourages hatred and violence, anyway? That runs counter to what the education system exists for, and while I’m all for free speech, if they want to teach their children that discriminating against or murdering innocent people is their deity’s will, they should do with their own damn money.
Encouraging tolerance is in the interests of a fair and stable society, and that’s what our education system needs to be about.
I agree with you, but I think you’re being too polite, and giving Harper’s statements more weight than they deserve. It’s blatant discrimination and back-pedaling, but couched in terms of religious tolerance and respect to hide how hateful it really is.
It’s not the government’s place to tell people what to believe. It is the government’s place to keep people from harming each other. Having a law saying that you can’t discriminate against or commit violence against gays does nothing to undermine any religious belief, no matter how backwards or counter-productive to society. You’re still free to hate anyone you want, you’re just not allowed to act on it. (I’m actually digging the irony in that the more I think about it, after reading so many self-righteous assholes say that they don’t hate homosexuals, they just hate homosexual acts.)
By Harper’s “logic,” y’all are going to have to start excluding a lot more people from hate crime laws than just homosexuals. What if my religion says that all who don’t believe in God are heretics and deserve to die? If I’m not allowed to go and wail on some muslims, then the government is intruding on my religious freedom! Conversely, what if I want to head up north and stage a jihad against the infidel Canucks? Isn’t my freedom of expression harmed if I say that all who don’t believe in Allah are wicked and encourage everyone to violence against them?
My ignorant American opinion: this guy Harper isn’t just a spineless politician, he’s a complete tool.
No argument here. But he’s a tool who’s running a very close second to be the next leader of this country and that really scares me. 
Just found out today that one of Harper’s “consultants” is John McGlaughlin, a right wing American strategist who ran the campaigns of or worked with:
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Former Senator Alfonse D’Amato
Former Senator Jesse Helms
Former Mayor Frank Rizzo
the American Conservative Union
the Christian Coalition
Empower America
The National Citizen’s Coalition
National Review
Damn, it’s really scary to see how the American hater-mongers are taking such an interest in Canada…
McGlaughlin’s hate-filled client list…
:mad:
Yeesh. I also read where Focus on the Family was dropping $1,5 million on the election, to fight same-sex marriage.
Well I just read that the most recent poll shows Harper even with Martin.
Hoping that NDPers pay attention to the critics of Ralph Nader. I’ll be too embarrassed to admit I’m Canadian if the Reform party gets in.
Ahhh… but what if the Martin government gets a minority and we hold the balance of power? 
In this riding the NDP has a better shot at beating the Conservative incumbent than the Liberals do. It helps the Liberals more for me to vote NDP than it does for me to vote Liberal.
Since same sex marriage is not going away even if the Conservatives win - and you can bank on it, it’s not going away - they just blew $1.5 million.
Would you share your reasoning on that? It might make me feel less nervous.
DISCLAIMER: IANACanadian, so differences could exist between US and Canadian statutes.
Well, I’d assume that, as children are unable to enter into contracts, children would mostly be unable to enter into marriage contracts. Which is what marriage is, as seen by the state. Now, whether there should be laws against underage sex, which isn’t a contract, is another case entirely.
In other words, I think that outside of contractual issues, I think that protection of pedophilia is indeed a natural extension of the relaxation of attitudes about the many different sexual orientations. Whether or not it will come to fruition, and whether or not this is a good thing are also up for debate.
(And another thought: one mustn’t worry about having to ban child marriage. Contractual law, under which most minors cannot enter into contracts, can cover the financial aspect, while sexual laws would cover the sexual aspect (realize of course that marriages do not have to involve sex).
why shouldn’t someone take it seriously? I can understand a judge dismissing the notion, but the issues are real.
Well, that’s easy:
- Harper doesn’t plan on passing a law stopping gay marriage - I know it’s been said in this thread that the CPC plans on reversing it with the notwithstanding clause, but that’s simply not in the platform - because he is not a complete idiot and knows using the notwithstanding clause, which they would have to do, would be political suicide.
- No private member’s bill could possibly get enough votes to pass, even if the Conservatives get a small majority. The Conservatives can’t win that many seats without electing a substantial number of CPC candidates who aren’t gay marriage opponents.
- The likeliest scenario at this point is that the CPC wins a plurality, not a majority. Two things could then happen; one, they could form a coalition government with the Bloc, which would never, ever support an anti-gay-marriage bill, two, they could form no coalition at all, in which case we’ll either be holding another election soon or we’ll enjoy the horror of a Liberal-NDP government.
- There’s no other way it could happen.
I am not comfortable with the CPC’s attitude towards gays. The weird blather about the hate crimes bill just bugs me; like Hamish, I don’t like having a hate crimes bill, but the strange concentration on its inclusion of gays suggests a lot of pent-up bigotry.
But gay marriage is a done deal in this country, and I’d bet a week’s pay on it. Gay marriages will be legally recognized for the forseeable future. I suppose the one thing they could do is rename it “civil unions,” but a rose by any other name and all that.
What I’m more concerned about is reproductive rights, which neither the Liberals (hello, Bill C-6) or Conservatives are strong on.
But he has said he would not rule it out. The question now is, is he a social conservative holding himself back so as not to alienate the fiscal conservatives, or a fiscal conservative playing to the socially conservative crowd? If he is a social conservative, and an extreme one, then he might be willing to risk political suicide for something he believed in.
True, they’re fielding some strictly fiscal conservatives. But as a party, they don’t have a monopoly on homophobia, just a higher concentration. In any free vote on gay issues, the Liberal party splits into about 1/3 anti-gay and 2/3 pro-gay, while the Bloc/NDP and the Conservatives cancel each other out.
Bill Graham and Liza Frulla may have a sterling record on gay issues (they’ve voted with us every single free vote), but other Liberals have an abysmal record (Dennis Mills and Tom Wappel come to mind), taking the anti-gay stance every single time. Hell, even my party has one resident homophobe, in the form of Bev Desjarlais.
It doesn’t take nearly as much to invoke the notwithstanding clause than it does to really change the constitution. I believe it’s only 50% + 1. A Conservative sweep of the Commons and a free vote on gay marriage might be just enough to push through a measure like this.
Well, we’ve already hashed out the complicated legal morass that two sets of terms could have, in other threads on this board. Law, unfortunately, is nine-tenths semantics. Or, as I said in another thread, “A same-sex marriage in Toronto is a same-sex marriage in the Netherlands, but a civil union in Quebec is ‘strangers’ in Alberta.”
The word marriage has a portability that civil unions can’t guarantee, and even if the two made precisely equal in this country, there’s no way to ensure that even other countries with gay marriage would recognize it as such.
I’d hate it worse if we degenerate into the de facto two-party system that’s taken root in both the US and Britain. In both those countries, real options for anyone dissenting from the two flavours (social conservative versus fiscal conservative/socially liberal) has no option, except to vote for an obscure third party and feel their vote has been wasted.
Our third parties still matter. This is a good thing, and it should be cultivated. They matter a helluvalot more in a minority government situation, where a third party can swing things.
What we need is electoral reform, and we need it desperately. We need either some form of proportional representation, a graduated ballot (first choice, second choice, third choice…), or some combination of the two.
Who’re the only parties talking about that? The NDP and the Greens, who both lose votes to the Liberals thanks to the “anyone-but-Harper” vote. And if we buy into that logic, we only cement it in place, and the real differences between the only two parties become less and less.
Well, to be precise about the laws.
First marriage: in Canada, you have to be 18 to marry, unless you get a parent’s permission. There’s an age threshold below which a parent’s permission is not sufficient (16? 15? 14? I can’t remember), and where a judge’s permission would be necessary. I don’t know if that permission has ever been given.
Second, underage sex. In Canada, the age of consent is 14, with a “Romeo and Juliet” law allowing some flexibility, if neither is below 12 and both are within 2 years. This isn’t California, with its age-18 age of consent.
I don’t think you’re going to find many Canadians who believe that a 20-year-old having sex with a 13-year-old, or a 16-year-old having sex with and 11-year-old doesn’t constitute a form of abuse. I certainly don’t think an 11-year-old can knowingly consent to sex.
I don’t see why that is. As my roommate said in another thread, “Just because we gave women the vote, didn’t mean we had to give it to children and animals, too.”
And besides, I don’t think anyone could argue that adult homosexuality is automatically a form of abuse. I don’t think the most rapid homophobe has ever made that claim. It usually comes down to sin (but why should we be bound by another’s religion?), or to their opinions of our psychological development (but psychological development isn’t for the state to decide, and the psychologists disagree).
However, it’s very easy to make the argument that paedophilia is predatory, and involves an enormous difference in power and knowledge. I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that a child cannot give consent to sex. It’s not a victimless crime.
Well, first of all, if the courts don’t take it seriously, it’s not going to become legal.
And I think if anything, society’s tolerance of paedophilia is increasing, not vanishing. There was a time in Western Civilization when children could be married off quite young (though whether they often were is a subject of some debate).
Correct me if I’m wrong (I’m not an expert), but haven’t our ages of consent been steadily rising for the last 2000 years? I don’t mean the ages where people tend to get married, or have sex, but the ages where the law allows it.
But the NDP, at least, also gain votes from the Liberals thanks to anyone-but-Harper voters. Though, to be honest, I think this time round there are a lot more anyone-but-Martin voters than there are anyone-but-Harper ones. But my point is that in any riding where the NDP historically poll ahead of the Liberals, a Liberal supporter who really wants to keep Conservatives out of office may well vote for the NDP. This, as it happens, is precisely the decision I’m facing in my own riding.
A speech Stephen Harper gave over a year ago resurfaced today, in which he makes very clear where he stands on the fiscal/social conservative scale. This is the Harper we rarely see – a far-right political philosopher who feels that the social progress of the last half-century is the true enemy.
An excerpt:
The most complete version of the speech I found is at the Canadian Branch of the Christian Coalition, so I’m linking that in spite of my distaste for them. They’re very excited. They think that in Stephen Harper, they’ve found their champion.
I’m sure they have.
I’m not surprised. Between our voting system and the issues in this campaign, this whole election is like a roulette wheel.
I have a feeling that once this mess is over, the Liberals will warm up a bit to ideas like proportional representation, and graduated ballots.
I don’t think Liberals will warm to PR in the forseeable future, but instant runoff voting could have a real shot, and I like it better to boot. It certainly wouldn’t hurt the Liberals out west, is all I can say, since there’s a fair bit of vote-splitting between Liberals and NDP out here. The NDP could only gain by it, too. Maybe you should call up Jack and see if you can’t get him to change his ultimatum.