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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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 Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 6:07 pm Post subject: Gay marriage galvanizes Canada's religious right |
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What I love about this is that no matter how hard they try they will fail and that's why Canada rocks when it comes to defending the rights of all its citizens. They lost the abortion fight and they will lose this one.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/18/america/web.1119canade.php
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OTTAWA: It was a lonely time here in the capital for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada in the early days of the gay marriage debate in 2003.
Of the scattered conservative Christian groups opposed to extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, it was the only one with a full-time office in Ottawa to lobby politicians. "We were the only ones here," said Janet Epp Buckingham, who was the group's public policy director then.
But that was before the legislation passed in 2005 allowing gay marriage in Canada. And before the election early this year of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative and an evangelical Christian who frequently caps his speeches with "God bless Canada."
Today across the country, the gay marriage issue and Harper's election have galvanized conservative Christian groups to enter politics like never before. |
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twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
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| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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We have a religious right?
Must be Albertans. |
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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Most Conservatives are smart enough to keep their distance from them. The religious right in Canada is a detriment to any political party. |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Yup I agree, just wait, the moment of final death for them will come when one of those wingnuts from the US says what we should do in a speech, then 85% of Canadians will rabidly turn against these groups. Nothing pisses of Canadians more than being told how to act by a self-righteous American. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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| I think someone is heavily stereotyping Albertans. Disproportionately, they are quite religious when compared to people in Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario, and Newfoundland, but you do have religious Christians in all of the provinces. They are not just a drop in the bucket in other parts of the West and in Ontario. You also have to include in this some Catholic groups. Christians are not only Evangelicals. The Liberal Party passed gay marriage but many of their mainstream Catholic and Protestant MPs were torn on the issue whether to support gay marriage, civil unions, or nothing at all. So making it an Alberta versus the rest of Canada on such an issue is not accurate. It is more accept, for example, in Quebec and B.C. than in Ontario and more accepted in Ontario than Alberta. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Alias wrote: |
| Most Conservatives are smart enough to keep their distance from them. The religious right in Canada is a detriment to any political party. |
If anyone's wondering about the wisdom of them trying to get involved in conservative politics in Canada, one need only take a look at the recent elections in the US and big religious "leaders" like Ted Haggard....
Then again I view their attempts at interference as an upside to getting the conservatives out faster...before they do any real damage to our unique culture of tolerance towards all Canadians.
Religious beliefs in Canada are a highly personal, private thing not to be trotted out and thrust upon the nation by the morality squad--and certainly not trotted out into the political arena to score electoral points. They will be reminded of this the hard way during next elections. I look forward to it  |
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Novernae
Joined: 02 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:25 am Post subject: Re: Gay marriage galvanizes Canada's religious right |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
| What I love about this is that no matter how hard they try they will fail and that's why Canada rocks when it comes to defending the rights of all its citizens. They lost the abortion fight and they will lose this one. |
If only it were so! You haven't looked at the situation in New Brunswick lately have you?  |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:53 am Post subject: |
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| What don't they get about the supreme court striking down the marriage law? What don't they get about gay marriage law simply protects the right of any religion not to marry homosexuals? |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:54 am Post subject: |
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I think this article is interesting because it illustrates a common fallacy: that people from countries that are geographically, culturally or historically similar to yours are going to think exactly the same way you do on most issues. When I lived in Canada, I found it wasn't the values of Chinese or Indonesian people who most surprised me...it was the ideas and values of guys I knew from Barbados, Jamaica or Australia.
The writer of this article seems to assume that Anglophone Canadians share identical values with many Americans as to how influential organized religions are - and should be - in politics and civil rights. I think most Canadians are satisfied with the successive rulings by the courts on the gay marriage issue, and unlike the US, the vast majority of citizens are uninterested in revisiting the issue.
I'm not trying to say that Canadian values on gay marriage are better than American ones...every society has a right to make their own decisions on issues such as these, and I don't think Canadians should tell Americans how to think on the subject. But I do think the writer is painting an inaccurate picture of how influential evangelical groups in Canada are likely to be on the issue. |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:27 am Post subject: |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
| Nothing pisses of Canadians more than being told how to act by a self-righteous American. |
Honestly, it's the eaxct same thing vice-versa. OH is dead on. If an American, Pat Robertson for example, said something about what the Canadians should do, the Canadians would do the exact opposite.
A prime example of this going the other way would be the 2004 White House race. Many people didn't really like Bush. However, when other countries started in on Americans to get rid of him, many of them shifted to support him. Michael Moore, who is American but represents Canada and Canadian values in so many ways, may have been the tipping point of the election when F911 came out. Many people from my area saw that and immediately began to support Bush when they were moderate before that movie came out.
Maybe you should sent Pat Robertson a letter expressing the hope that he can persuade the Canadian public to recant their sinful ways...  |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 5:48 am Post subject: |
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Novernae wrote:
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| If only it were so! You haven't looked at the situation in New Brunswick lately have you? |
Well I find them to be barbaric by Canadian standards, they are not nearly as bad as places like Georgia in the US. New Brunswick, a province with less than 800k people has one private abortion clinic run by Canadian Hero Morgantiler (sp) and abortions are conducted in public health facilities just with severe limitations on age of fetus and medical requirements.
That said, none of these will withstand a charter challenge which the good doctor began in 2003 and has yet to reach the high court, as far as I could find. |
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Novernae
Joined: 02 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 6:09 am Post subject: |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
Novernae wrote:
| Quote: |
| If only it were so! You haven't looked at the situation in New Brunswick lately have you? |
Well I find them to be barbaric by Canadian standards, they are not nearly as bad as places like Georgia in the US. New Brunswick, a province with less than 800k people has one private abortion clinic run by Canadian Hero Morgantiler (sp) and abortions are conducted in public health facilities just with severe limitations on age of fetus and medical requirements.
That said, none of these will withstand a charter challenge which the good doctor began in 2003 and has yet to reach the high court, as far as I could find. |
Public Health facility. There is only one now that is offering the service. The medical (and psychological) allowances for the public service are nearly impossible to fulfill given that 30,000 people have no family doctor and wait times for appointments usually take you past the time limit. Mix that with some family doctors who won't prescribe birth control (or refer their patients to another doctor as the law requires) and you've got some good competition to some of those backwater states for a large portion of the population, just not officially. |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 6:17 am Post subject: |
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Except it won't stand up to a challenge, the court will force the province to pay for abortions.
I won't pretend to be an expert on New Brunswick abortion law, but the court will not let it stand assuming it makes it that far. I suspect the next Liberal gov't will just force them to pay for it under the Canada Health Act.
Also, a general lack of doctors is a touch different from a state where they place massive restrictions designed specifically to shut down clinics, for a great documentary go to frontline at pbs.org and watch "The Last Abortion Clinic".
As for gay marriage, and this is the great part, no matter how much lobbying the religious-right does the courts of Canada have already ruled, if it goes to the SC there's no reason to believe that it won't continue the trend. Not to mention the Conservative's don't have the votes to win by most calculations/studies/polls. I love Canada (not saying I don't love other country's so don't start). |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| double post |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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