Dignity and Difference: Presenting Before the Parliamentary Committee on the Same-sex Marriage Bill
- IAIN T. BENSON
I recently returned from a trip to the humid expanses of Ottawa and Toronto. I was invited to appear before the Parliamentary Committee on Bill C-38, the same sex marriage bill.
Iain T. Benson
|
After
only a few days to prepare a brief, and no days to translate it (they wanted all
materials before them to be submitted in French and English and would help if
one got the Brief to them many days before too many days for me) a terrible
series of missed flights and bad nights sleep, I eventually appeared before them
as their second to last witness CPAC, the Parliamentary television program taped
the whole thing so it will be somewhere in a dusty vault for my childrens children
to view I suppose sigh.
The M. P.s on the Committee were courteous
and the proceedings were tightly choreographed. The President of the Committee,
Monsieur Roulx, informed us that the three witness presenters each had 10 minutes
then each of the four political parties (Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Bloc Quebecois)
would get 7 minutes to question us.
The presenters were Stanley Hartt,
former Chief of Staff to former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and
now Chairman of Citigroup, your humble servant, and Rev. David Maines, a television
evangelist.
Mr. Hartt went first and spoke eloquently about how the
word marriage just couldnt be changed by law and that it was unnecessary to
do so. All arguments made unsuccessfully before the Courts. He was right, however,
to point out that the Supreme Court of Canada Reference left many unexplored options
that the Same-sex Marriage Bill ignores. I suspect this would be just so much
oh yeah, ..yawn. from the politicos who are set permanently to the settings
of the last activist group that left their offices.
I went next and
my brief [click here] now available
on the Centres website (so I shall not repeat my arguments here.) The essence
of my brief was that proper respect for the dignity of another citizen cannot
entail that I accept all the practices or beliefs of the other
citizen. Just as one citizen cannot force other citizens to accept religious beliefs
or practices (since based on dogma and belief) so another citizen cannot force
other citizens to accept his or her sexual practices or belief (also based upon
dogma and belief).
Therefore the government should not attempt to force
recognition of same-sex practices (entailed in marriage) by legislation.
Next
came David Maines presentation. He represents a well-known television show 101
Huntley Street. He spent four minutes of his important time talking about his
past discussions and associations with Svend Robinson (a former M.P. who resigned
in disgrace after a ring-stealing episode) and his high regard for the man because
he follows his beliefs.
The Committee had many questions about the
concerns of religious groups. Mostly they professed themselves surprised along
the following line:
- The numbers of gays and lesbians seeking
access to marriage is small so hey, it wont affect you religious folks.;
- This
law is only about civil marriage and shouldnt therefore worry religious people;
- Times change and isnt the attempt to set up civil unions or some other non-marital kind of category simply another separate but equal kind of thing?
Generally,
they (the Liberals and others supporting the bill such as the Bloc and the NDP)
wanted to assure religious groups that this bill is only about Civil marriage
and wont affect religious groups.
I dealt with all the arguments,
above, and several more key ones.
The essence of my brief was that proper respect for the dignity of another citizen cannot entail that I accept all the practices or beliefs of the other citizen. Just as one citizen cannot force other citizens to accept religious beliefs or practices (since based on dogma and belief) so another citizen cannot force other citizens to accept his or her sexual practices or belief (also based upon dogma and belief). |
First, that only a few gays and
lesbians relatively speaking, want to get married. The numbers are irrelevant
because what is being sought is to change a constitutional norm to achieve
social recognition. That will then change all of society because the claim
will be made that the new norm should apply in all public fora, including public
education, thus affecting everyone. To illustrate the last point I used the following
metaphor.
Same sex activists say that their claim is just like adding
two drops of oil (themselves) to a bucket of water (the rest of society)
they argue, on this example, that little or nothing is changed. The reality is
that it is like adding two drops of food colouring to a bucket of water
the whole is changed. That is, after all, their intent whether they are conscious
of it or not (and most are).
Second, marriage is a social institution
that does not divide into civil and religious. All citizens are in the civil
and the concept of marriage is shared between them as part of our civic glue
(at the moment). Dividing civil from religious in this way just plays into
the hands of secularism.
Third, the separate but equal argument applied
to racism does not apply to same-sex marriage claims. The notion of separate
but equal based on the U.S. case on segregationist education, Brown v. Board
of Education (1954) does reject the establishment of prejudicial second-class
categories. But the claim for same-sex marriage is not the same as fair treatment
in education where exclusions were based on race because rejecting same sex marital
claims is not the same sort of thing.
This is because, in racism, one
is rejecting a race all the way down and rejecting their personhood not their
beliefs. Same-sex marriage is a belief of same-sex people, a dogmatic
view that they have, it is not the same as rejection of a particular gay or lesbian
person per se. I can respect gays and lesbians without granting the validity of
their claim for marriage recognition just as they can respect the dignity of a
religious person without accepting his or her beliefs. The validity (or non-validity)
of same-sex conduct is a belief like other beliefs.
Just as one can
reject a belief that a particular religious person may have and to try to use
law to force acceptance of my religious beliefs is going too far, so it is going
too far to use law to force acceptance of gay or lesbian beliefs such as
the belief in same-sex marriage. Remember that the law did not define
heterosexual marriage, it recognized it.
Of course, in the
briefs put before them, and special mention here must be made of Peter Lauwers
excellent one on public education, [click
here] and how it will be changed by a constitutional norm change to include
same-sex marriage, religious groups explained why the proposed bill would effect
them and the long list of recent attacks to marginalize and stigmatize them in
Canadian society.
The proposed Civil Marriage Act is a clever bit
of secularistic planning. It drives a further wedge between religions and society
since the line between some so-called civil and religious marriage is, of
course, an illusion. All citizens are part of the civil whether or not they are
religious citizens. Secularism simply uses this alluring distinction to get the
upper hand yet again. Marriage is for all citizens and the goal of changing it
is just proceeding one step at a time the pose of giving comfort to religious
groups is the step just prior to attacking them head on.
After the
Committee had asked its hard questions of Mr. Hartt and myself, they decided to
ask most of their questions to Rev. David Maines. For the most part he spoke generally
about concerns of Christians regarding society generally and did not seemed well
versed in the specifics of the Bill itself.
The old legal adage about
not asking a question to which one does not know the answer plays out slightly
differently in these governmental Committees. There the theory is, dont ask
a question unless you think the answerer will give you what you want or will do
less damage than others will to the position you want to advocate. Svend Robinson
was a past master at asking questions in Committee, of those he knew would put
the worst (or least best) light on the positions he opposed.
The Committee,
by all accounts, had been stacked before the hearings began to ensure that its
majority mind would not be swayed. Apparently Prime Minister Martin has said perhaps
I ought not to have stacked the Committee so heavily. Good of him. What a guy
not only a serious Catholic but dispassionately aware, after the fact,
of the effects of gerrymandering! The Bill is going forward but some of the amendments
suggested by the Committee (including one made in our brief) shows that they are
unsettled by what is before them. The so-called Civil Marriage Bill is not a good
or fair thing for Canada and should not be passed into law.
Speaking
with Committee members and a few M.P.s afterwards it is generally acknowledged
that the most effective presentation before them by anyone or group was that made
by Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary. The portion of the Hearing with his comments
may be found here.
If you want to know what our arguments were, you can read the brief
or consult the Parliamentary site :
First Report, June 15, 2005 - [click
here]
Committee Membership - [click
here]
This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.
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Acknowledgement
Benson, Iain T. "Dignity and Difference: Presenting Before the Parliamentary Committee on the Same-sex Marriage Bill". CentreBlog Volume 88 (June 22, 2005).
Reprinted from the Centre for Cultural Renewal's blog, "CentreBlog", with permission of the author, Iain Benson.
The Author
Iain Tyrrell Benson is a legal philosopher, writer, professor and practising legal consultant. The main focus of his work in relation to law and society has been to examine some of the various meanings that underlie terms of common but confused usage. An advocate that the public sphere should be open and inclusive of all citizens and their groups, whether their faith and belief commitments are based on non-religious or religious beliefs, Iain Benson was the first Executive Director of the Centre for Cultural Renewal, a non-partisan, non-denominational charitable foundation with status in both Canada and the United States, dedicated to examining the nature of pluralism with particular reference to the associational rights dimension of religion and expression.
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