punctuation 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z (all)
©1997-2009 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought of half so good… luckily, it’s not difficult.
~ Charlotte Whitton (born: 1896-03-08 died: 1975-01-25 at age: 78) lesbian, and Mayor of Ottawa.
“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.Falwell’s assertion is a faith-based assertion. He has no evidence to back it up. Therefore this is a religious belief, and by the constitution, he may not force his religious nuttiness on me. Because Christians are in a majority in the USA, they often forget this limitation on their right to bully others.
~ Jerry Falwell (born: 1933-08-11 died: 2007-05-15 at age: 73)
| Argument | Rebuttal | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gays can’t have children. | Neither can barren straight couples, couples using birth control or elderly couples. Do we deny them the rights of marriage as soon as they stop producing children? Further, gay couples can have children, either by artificial insemination, a surrogate partner, or eventually via genetic manipulation. | ||||||||||||
| Jeannine Lebel, president of Real Women, argued that "Parliament can give special support and recognition to the heterosexual relationship in carrying out its critical task of raising children, which is of benefit to all society." | If the rights of marriage are based on child production, then you must be consistent and withdraw those rights from heterosexual couples who cannot or will not produce children. You cannot hand out special rights based on membership in some privileged class, irrespective of what one actually does. If special rights are to be based on child rearing, then, to be consistent, you must give them to any couples who are willing to raise children, including same sex couples. Clearly bigots like Jeannine Lebel are not willing to do that. Ms. Lebel is being disingenuous. This issue is a red herring. Gays also do things that are "of benefit to all of society", so why should they be excluded from enjoying equal civil rights? Given the current problems with global overpopulation and the strain it puts on the environment, I find it odd to consider bringing even more children into the world a "benefit". Should that questionably-valuable, potential of child-creation grant all heterosexuals special privilege before the law? Of course not! (As I pointed out earlier, gays can create children almost as easily as straights.) A heterosexual woman who abuses her infant in the womb with drugs and alcohol, and who later fails to provide food or shelter, is granted greater privilege before the law than a lesbian couple who wishes to adopt and properly care for that same child. Jeannine Lebel with her "special rights" for heterosexuals is spouting the same sort of elitist claptrap that privileged classes have always used to morally justify using the law to exclude others from enjoying those same privileges. | ||||||||||||
| Gays are free to marry someone of the opposite sex. They are demanding a special right, to marry someone of the same sex. | This is playing with language. Logicians warn of the logical fallacies
introduced by self-referential terms such as "opposite" Restate
it plainly enumerating all four cases.
| ||||||||||||
| Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve | This is such a non-sequitur it is hard to even begin a rebuttal. The Bible condemns heterosexual sex hundreds of times more frequently than homosexual. The most commonly quoted anti-gay sections of the Bible are Lot (where the condemnation depends on a pun on the word "know" which appears only in the King James version, and Leviticus (who also condemns to death everyone and everything for minor crimes like eating a lobster or not being sufficiently respectful to your father), or St. Paul (who pontificated that it was exceedingly wicked for women to wear hats in church). The Bible warns of the dangers of promiscuity. Why do the conservative forces want encourage promiscuity by banning legally recognised gay unions? Finally, this homophobia is a Christian superstition. What right have Christians to impose their religious superstitions on others? They have no more right than to demand that everyone pretend each week to eat a bloody piece of human flesh to commemorate the death of Jesus. | ||||||||||||
| It’s ain’t natural. Even a dog knows which sex to mate with. Gays are lower than the animals. | Other animal species such as dolphins, cattle, geese, swans, rats, budgerigars etc. form homosexual unions. It may be a natural population control device. The way the planetary population is ballooning way above the ecology’s ability to support it, we should be encouraging homosexual unions or any other unions that don’t produce children. | ||||||||||||
| The Canadian Catholic Church position is: Keep the traditional definition of marriage. It has served society well and it will serve society in the future. | This argument works equally well for defending slavery or witch burning. Of course oppressing gays served the majority just fine in past. However, it did not serve the gay minority. | ||||||||||||
| Born again Christian lawyer Doug Christie argues the slippery slope that if you allow gay marriage then you must also allow people to marry their pets and to marry children. | The slippery slope argument can also be used in reverse. If we do anything the fundamentalists like, e.g. allow voluntary school prayer, then we are headed on an unstoppable path back to reinstating slavery and witch burning. The slippery slope is one of the classic logical fallacies. Horses can’t give consent to marriage. They cannot fulfill the commitments. It is harmful to children to push them into sexual relationships. There is no popular will to allow people and horses to marry. There is certainly no popular will to legitimise pedophilia through marriage. Why then would we, as a democracy, inevitably embark on a path that almost no one supports? | ||||||||||||
| Doug Christie argues that allowing same sex couples destroys the moral sanctity of marriage. | Same sex marriages have almost no effect on anyone but same sex couples. Bigots like Christie are unlikely to be invited to many same-sex weddings. He is a busy body meddling in the lives of others where there is almost no effect on his own life. Adultery and taking your partner for granted are what destroy heterosexual marriages, not same sex marriages between people you have never even met. | ||||||||||||
| Conservative leader Stephen Harper lied to panic his bigot base. | “The Liberals have allowed a handful of tenured judges to create a situation where churches, synagogues, mosques and temples could be compelled to perform marriages that violate their own moral codes.The proposed law specifically precluded any church, synagogue or mosque from having to conduct any marriage which violates their belief system. There was never any push from anyone to make churches perform gay marriages. Same-sex marriage is a civil liberties, legal, equal-rights issue, not a religious one. The Conservative party agenda is driven my religious fanatics and bigots whose view of gays is as scientifically accurate as the KKK’s view of blacks. Homosexuality is a mental disorder that can be cured through counselling.Thankfully, at least at time of writing, 2007-02, the Conservatives are in a minority position and cannot impose their bigotry via law. | ||||||||||||
| What’s the point? Gays are 100% promiscuous. They never have sex with the same person twice. | There is some truth to that when you consider according to one study of gay
males: 11 percent of gay males are in a committed monogamous relationship. 33
percent of gay males are in a non-committed open relationship. 56 percent of gay
males are not in any relationship. This is partly caused by the wandering eye of
all males, straight and gay, and partly because society, up to now, has so
strongly discouraged male couples, and partly because of the esteem problem gays
have. However, the current laws also discriminate against lesbians who are on
average much more interested in long term relationships. However, other studies
such as the one at BuddyBuddy
discovered the following: about sexual agreements:
| ||||||||||||
| If we make being gay respectable, all our kids will turn gay. | Sexuality is hard-wired into the brain long before puberty. You can’t change your gender preference just by an act of will. Gays can’t make themselves straight. Straights can’t make themselves gay. I read three books provided by Reverend Terry Winter on how Christ can reputedly convert gays into straights. The books made no such claims. They simply talked of how some bi-sexual men were gradually able to stop acting on their gay side desires. They put their wives through hell in the process. They were never able to change their preferences, just white-knuckle avoid acting them out. | ||||||||||||
| The Bible says its our duty to kill gays. We should at least make their lives as miserable as possible. | How Christian! Jesus overturned much of that Old Testament nastiness with the first stone demonstration. Further, the Canadian constitution protects people based on discrimination based on gender or sexual preference. Canada is made up of people of many faiths. You can’t go forcing your brand of religion down other’s throats. There is a separation of church and state. Besides if you did everything the Bible told you, you would be obligated to dash out the brains of babies, adulterers, lobster eaters etc. Your daughter would be obligated to marry anyone who raped her. The Bible is a questionable source for equitable law. | ||||||||||||
| Permitting gay marriage will destroy the institution for straight people, or to use George W. Bush’s phrase, "Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage" People will start demanding to marry their poodles or their maple trees. No one will get married anymore. | Marriage is an institution known in all cultures in all times. It is not
about to go away so easily. I can’t imagine bride refusing her husband on
the grounds she read in the newspaper that someone else who just happened to be
male, shared a similar joy. Gay people fall seriously in love just like
straights. Just how does encouraging gays to lead promiscuous unmarried lives
strengthen family values? In medieval times marriage was possible between
members of the same sex. Clearly, it did not stop straight people from marrying
then. It would not now. Those highly opposed to gay marriages would likely never
be invited to one. Same sex marriage would have no effect on their lives. The
bigots just want to interfere and make like miserable for gays on general
principle. Religious bigots feel they have a divine right, nay duty, to do this.
Religious bigots claim they feel persecuted at the thought of gays being allowed to participate in marriage. This is ridiculous. Gay marriage does not change their relationships or churches one iota. Their opposition is morally equivalent do denying black people the right to marry because of the perceived inferiority of blacks, unsupported by evidence. “The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn’t be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans; in the New World, of course, they could and did.The constitution of Canada and the USA guarantees freedom of religion. My religion does not condemn homosexuals. Yours may. You may not enforce your religion on me, and I cannot enforce my religion on you. My choice of marriage partner is none of your business. You don’t have a right to impose what I consider silly and irrelevant superstitions on my choice, blocking me from marrying the man I love. I don’t insist on meddling in your choice of partner, so please butt out of mine. If you feel sullied just knowing gay marriage exists somewhere unseen, it is because you are harbouring notions of preposterous superiority to gays. If you want a stronger marriage, tend to your own relatioship, rather than meddling in those of strangers. | ||||||||||||
| Marriage is a religious institution, and God doesn’t want gays to marry. | In his article in the 1999-01-18 National Post, Brad Aisa made the following argument. Gays are not demanding a religious ceremony, but the secular rights of marriage that heterosexuals enjoy. Many straight people who marry are not religious at all. Atheists marry. Conversely, many gay people are religious, and have undergone religious bonding ceremonies, ahead of legal sanction of their relationship. Many churches now sanctify gay partnerships, and even more are considering it. The new law strengthens the right of a minister to choose the couples he or she will marry. Ministers have total freedom to discriminate. | ||||||||||||
| If gays are allowed to marry, they will be able to adopt kids. They will molest them and make them turn queer. | The people most likely to molest children are straight males. Gay males and females are much less likely to molest children. Children raised by gays show the same likelihood of being straight or gay as children raised by hets. Sexual preference is something built-in, not something you copy from your parents. After all, straight daughters live with fathers who prefer women. They don’t usually copy them. |
 |
| liberals on gay marriage |
| Belgium | A law passed in March gives gay couples inheritance rights and allows them to open joint bank accounts. |
| Britain | In July, about 100 British legislators voiced support for efforts to give homosexuals the right to receive partner’s state pension after death. |
| Canada | At 11:25 PM on 2005-07-19, the Senate passed the equal marriage bill by an overwhelming 47 to 21, with 3 abstentions. This was the final step befor royal assent. It was a long time coming. 1998 court rulings insisted that gay couples be given the same pension rights as straight couples. The provinces affected did not appeal the ruling. See the Federation for Equal Families website for more information. Gay groups launched a lawsuit demanding an overhaul of 58 laws to bring the into line with the charter of freedoms. Ottawa decided to proceed with amendments that would treat homosexual couples the same as heterosexuals in everything from pensions to bankruptcy laws. Ontario and BC, then later Quebec and Nova Scotia, legalised gay marriages. New Brunswick announced they too were accepting gay marriage. The federal Liberals did not appeal. In BC, gay couples can adopt children. I don’t know about the rest of the country. There was a free vote in the federal legislature in 2005-02. In 2004, same-sex marriages were being performed routinely in both BC and Ontario. In 2004 the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was constitutional. The province giving most resistance was Alberta, the most right-wing part of Canada. As of 2005-02, the holdouts were Alberta, PEI, New Brunswick, Nunavut and the North West Territories. On 2005-07-20 gay marriage was made legal across Canada. |
| China | China’s psychiatric community still considers homosexuality an illness. However, it is not illegal to be gay in China, but police harassment depends on local municipal or provincial policies, many unwritten, as is much of Chinese law. |
| Columbia | Military gays are now free to reveal their sexual orientation, live on base with a partner, and be affectionate with each other away from work. Presumably civilian gays receive similarly enlightened treatment. |
| Denmark | In 1989 became the first country in the world to allow same-sex marriages. In 2000, Denmark passed a law that gives homosexuals couples the right to obtain custody of children by a previous heterosexual marriage, however gay couples still cannot adopt children. |
| Iceland | Approved registered cohabitation in 1996, which gives gay couples many of the legal rights enjoyed by heterosexual married couples, but doesn’t allow adoption. Iceland allows same-sex couples to adopt each others kids, and allows couples to adopt other kids as a couple. |
| Finland | Finland will give gay couples access to marriage-like registered partnerships. On 2000-11-29, the government accepted a proposal from the Justice Ministry, discussions will begin in Parliament December, and an affirmative vote is expected in 2001. Most marriage rights and obligations are expected to be included except for access to adoption. |
| France | Same-sex couples currently have no legal status. Bill to give some rights to homosexual and unmarried heterosexual couples is currently under heated debate in parliament. |
| Germany | The new center-left government intends to grant some legal status to same-sex couples, but not the right to adopt children |
| Hungary | Passed a law in 1996 granting gay couples inheritance rights, but law doesn’t allow adoptions. Hungary’s situation results from a legal case that applied the European Charter, more for political reasons [i.e. fear of not being accepted into the EU] than anything else and ruled in favour of same-sex relationships. The status of gays is probably broader than just pension rights. |
| Italy | A few cities have taken the symbolic step of creating a register for unmarried couples, but the measures carry no legal weight. |
| Japan | Japanese psychiatrists have now declared same-sex orientation is not a mental illness. |
| Netherlands | New law took effect in 1999 permitting gay and lesbian couples to marry, giving them the same pension, social security and inheritance rights as other married couples. Dutch Cabinet approved a plan in 1999-11 to let homosexuals adopt children. The adoption bill places some restrictions on foreign adoptions. Gay couples, of either sex will have the option of being married or being domestic partners. The proposal became law in 2000-09. Gays will gain access to full marriage this January under the same laws that apply to opposite- sex couples. Couples who previously registered under the partnership law will be allowed to convert their unions to ordinary marriage. |
| Norway | Same sex marriage is legal and called Registered Domestic Partnership since 1993-08-0=. It is virtually the same as Sweden and Denmark. It can be used for mental patient commitment. The Norwegian church does not allow church marriages, but it is very influential as it is a State Church, and it supported the passage, though there is a rural backlash which has caused a church schism. Apparently as of 1997 there were 700 registered partnerships in a country of 4.3 million with 850,000 married. Registrations run about 100 per year. The legalization passed by only one vote, and a Norwegian representative named Anders Gasland came out just before the vote and his arguments about not being able to love was a help in the passage and a courageous thing for him to do. Adoption is still not available as is also the case with in vitro fertilization. The primary reason adoption is an issue in Europe seems to be the fear that if gays are allowed to adopt it will cause the cut off of international adoptions from countries with a different view who are currently relied on for a supply of babies. They psychiatric community in Norway has not considered same-sex attraction an illness for some time, and that is not unusual in other European countries. Psychoanalysis in Europe is way behind. |
| Spain | Gay couples have no official status. Northeastern Catalonia region, however, recently passed a law recognizing homosexual couples but barring them from adopting children or receiving inheritance benefits. In 2005-05 Spanish Parliament took the first step to recognising gay marriage. |
| Sweden | Has allowed homosexuals to register as partners in a sort of civil marriage since 1995. The couples cannot adopt children or have them through artificial means. Church weddings are not permitted. |
| USA | On 2009-09-01 Vermont allowed same sex marriage. Unlike other states that were pushed into it by court order, Vermont enacted legislation. In 2009-09-01, Maine will vote on a gay-marriage referendum. On 2008-11-12 Connecticutt permitted gay marriage. Massuchussetts was the first state to allow same sex marriage on 2004-05-17. As of 2008-11-13 30 states deny gays the right to marry, even California. The cause is persecution by religious fundamentalists forcing their beliefs on others. On 2009-05-26 the California Supreme court upheld Proposition 8, and the right of bigots to deny civil rights to gays on religious grounds. The court allowed those already married to stay married. Someday this ruling will seem as backward as courts upholding slavery. |
and
George T.H. Fuller
.
The constitution is very clear. The US government is not permitted to enact religious laws. They can’t for example force to you pray to a specific god or donate to a specific church. They can’t enforce religious dress codes.
Yet when it comes to gay marriage, many Americans forget that the sole reason for banning gay marriage is religious superstition. Christian believe gays ideally should be killed, or at the very least persecuted only because God (they mean some verses in the old testament) told them to. Blocking gays from marrying is thus clearly unconstitutional. It is an attempt force Christian superstition on those who reject it. It is just as unconstitutional as trying to force Buddhists to make burnt offerings to Jehovah in public schools.
It does not matter if you consider the religious objection “correct” or not, because by the US constitution, you may not enact such a law. You are free to fulminate on the wickedness of gays marrying, but you may not enact a religious-based law to persecute gays. If Christians want to persecute gays, they need a secular excuse for it to bypass the constitution.
The catch is, the people of the USA are so thoroughly soaked in Christian superstition, they don’t even notice they are violating their own constitution, not even many learned judges. Otherwise all these anti-gay religion-motivated laws would have been instantly overturned.
In Canada, the constitution guarantees the strict equality of men and women. Whatever men are permitted to do, so may women, and vice versa. It therefore follows as a corollary than women may marry women because men can.
or
Deb LeRose
.
They are wonderful warm people. I highly recommend them.
The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional.
~ Richard Kramer (born: 1947-07-22 age: 62), California Superior Court Judge
The following is a message I got from the Conservative MP in the heart of Conservative anti-gay Canada. Jim Prentice is the MP for Calgary. To my surprise, he comes down on the side of gay marriage using an argument for personal liberty from John Stuart Mill. He will have a free vote in the commons.
2005-02-02, CALGARY & Yesterday the Liberal government introduced their much-awaited marriage legislation.
The decision I have come to has been a difficult one. I have spoken to many hundreds in my riding of Calgary Centre-North. I have met with many community leaders including religious leaders from Calgary and representatives of the gay community. I have held an open Town Hall Meeting and I have done my best to understand the legal and theological issues that this decision has raised.
For me, the marriage question is one of individual liberty — of constitutional liberty.
Let’s be clear. I have been married to the same woman for 21 years, reflecting my own personal definition of what marriage is. It is also the definition of my own church, the Presbyterian Church of Canada.
It is not, however, the personal definition of many of our fellow citizens who are homosexual and who have sought the protection of the Charter to obtain civil marriage licences from the government.
Fundamentally the question is this: what right do we as a society have to refuse gay Canadians something that the rest of us are entitled to — namely, a civil marriage license.
Set aside the legal debate, and ask the very simple question. What moral or political authority do we have to deny gay Canadians the issuance of a government marriage license?
The answer in my mind is clear. We have no such right at all because whether two people of the same sex marry, and how and whether their gender enters into the relationship, is none of the government’s business, providing they do no harm to anyone else.
“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.I am a conservative, and this is the philosophy that guides me in public life.
~ John Stuart Mill (born: 1806-05-20 died: 1873-05-08 at age: 66)
Each of us has the right to fashion our own life to suit our own character without impediment from others, providing we harm no one else and providing we accept the consequences of our own decisions.
If we have the right, as a society, to prohibit homosexual Canadians from civil marriage because their idea of a marriage differs form ours, do we have an equal right to prohibit some Christians, Muslims, or Sikhs from preaching aspects of their faith, which are not shared by the majority of Canadians? By parity of reasoning, would we not have an equally valid entitlement to suppress the literature, political opinions or political association of those who hold views different than our own?
These are the modern liberties of our western society. They are the very liberties that underpin western society, and they are owed to each of us equally and unconditionally.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures that all Canadians must be treated equally at law, including the right to marry. Equally the Charter protects the rights of religions to carry on their faith according to their own doctrine.
The vote for Conservatives is a free one. Stephen Harper has shown courage and leadership and his position has been very clear to Canadians. It is particularly disappointing that Mr. Martin did not have the strength of leadership to allow his entire Caucus to have a free vote on this issue.
I have come to the conclusion that I will stand in defence of the constitutional right of homosexual couples to civil marriage, even though their definition of marriage is not my own. I will be equally vigilant in defending religious marriage and religious freedom, for it is equally clear that neither the Christian community nor the other communities of faith can be compelled to accept or perform same sex marriages. Religious freedom must stand sacrosanct and religious marriage must stand as the exclusive preserve of our communities of faith.
I intend to vigorously support the Conservative Party amendments that would strengthen these protections of religious freedoms.
This decision has been a difficult one. My riding has a diversity of opinions on this question. I appreciate that my decision will not make everybody happy. I will be accountable.
In the final analysis, I have concluded that religious marriage is the authority of the church and that jurisdiction must be jealously guarded. But civil marriage, or governmental marriage, of two Canadians, must be available equally to all. Therefore, I will be voting in favour of this legislation and I will support Conservative Party amendments designed to protect religious freedoms.
 |
recommend book⇒A Legal Guide for Lesbian & Gay Couples (Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples, 11th Ed) | |
| paperback | ||
|---|---|---|
| ISBN13: | 978-0-87337-790-4 | |
| publisher: | Nolo.com | |
| published: | 2002-03 | |
| by: | Hayden Curry, Denis Clifford, Frederick Hertz | |
| Covers American gay legal issues. | ||
 |
recommend book⇒Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe | ||
| paperback | hardcover | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| ISBN13: | 978-0-679-75164-9 | 978-0-679-43228-9 | |
| publisher: | Vintage | ||
| published: | 1995-05-30 | ||
| by: | John Boswell | ||
| A scholarly work about the sanctification of homosexual relations in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches during Medieval Europe. | |||
We should not allow gays couples to divorce. Divorce should be between a man and a woman.”
Stephen Colbert (born: 1964-05-13 age: 45)
 |
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