NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
SUNDAY SPECTATOR
February 8, 2004
More revolution
While the latest front of the "gay revolution" consolidates its victories in Canada it is also making significant progress in the United States -- with Canadian help. Here in Canada Bill C-250 designed in my view to stifle public discussion of the moral issue of homosexuality has been reintroduced after lapsing with the last parliamentary session. ... Bill Graham a Minister of the Crown phoned the Toronto Star to assure it that the new Martin government would put an act to fully legalize gay marriage to a vote in Parliament before the next election. ... Larry Spencer was formally excluded from the Conservative Party caucus for having spoken controversially on the subject. ... And we have had the spectacle of Belinda Stronach an attractive blonde airhead who is now a front-running candidate for the leadership of that party declaring that Same-sex marriage is a human right, while the alternative candidate maintains his discreet silences. Looking south: In November the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court instructed the state's freely-elected legislature to rewrite its laws within six months in order to grant same-sex couples their "constitutional right" to marry. On Wednesday in response to a query from the state Senate it clarified that a Vermont-style "civil union" provision would not be acceptable -- only full marriage would do. And the Massachusetts court buttressed its case by citing the Ontario Superior Court decision which legalized same-sex marriages in this province last summer. (I predict our Supreme Court will cite the Massachusetts decision in return.) Well I agree with the majority (4-3) in one respect: that this is an all-or-nothing proposition. Marriage is a substance as well as a word and granting the substance without the word is rank hypocrisy. "Civil unions" confer on the same-sex couple and will confer on any future multiple-spouse combinations exactly the privileges previously enjoyed by the legitimately married -- including tax advantages joint access to welfare and pension coverage and full adoption "rights". (The quotes are necessary for the idea that the adoption of a living child can be a human right is a moral obscenity on a level with slavery.) As a rearguard action Massachusetts legislators have convened a constitutional convention for next week in which an amendment to the state's constitution will be proposed to define marriage explicitly as the union of one man and one woman. But such an amendment which requires two votes in the legislature on either side of an election followed by a state-wide referendum would take about three years. By confirming its original six-month deadline the Massachusetts high court subverted this recourse to "the people". Indeed in a condescending dismissal of their right to an opinion Chief Justice Margaret Marshall wrote That there may remain personal residual prejudice against same-sex couples is a proposition all too familiar to other disadvantaged groups. That such prejudice exists in not a reason to insist on less than the constitution requires. When the opinion of what is likely the majority of the electorate is described as a "personal residual prejudice" we are dealing with something more than mere personal arrogance. And when a moral disorder is intentionally confused with a cultural or racial identity we are dealing with a view of reality that is deeply twisted. The degree of the condescension may be gauged by the fact that the constitutional right to same-sex marriage on which Madame Chief Justice based her decision does not exist. Her invocation of it was a bare-faced lie. The idea that any such "right" existed or anything resembling such a right in the founding documents of Massachusetts or any other polity in North America is a howling absurdity. While there are many opinions about the present state of public opinion on same-sex marriage the fact that the majority on the Massachusetts court acted to subvert any political response reveals their own assumptions. The justices themselves clearly don't believe they have public support even in America's most liberal jurisdiction. The possibility that a Supreme Court decision in Washington could extend this revolution across the United States became very real last November when its justices struck down a Texas law against sodomy -- reversing the Court's own decision recognizing a state's right to make such law 17 years ago. In the opinion of the dissenting justice Antonin Scalia the court's majority used reasoning that would also make a challenge on same-sex marriage irresistible. Justice Scalia's opinion was mocked but was not rebutted. We are living in a dark time in which we see the laws that bind our civilization together arbitrarily overthrown by judicial fiat with no comprehension and verily no interest in what the destructive consequences will be for our families and society at large. I am more and more convinced that we must drop the pretence that these judges are fulfilling a legitimate mandate. They are the deadly enemies of all we hold dear. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top