OTTAWA, February 17, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The same sex marriage bill debate in the House of Commons commenced Wednesday with Prime Minister Paul Martin, a Catholic, leading the charge for the legislation.
With a sneering arrogance Martin broadly painted sincere opponents of marriage redefinition as human rights violators who would not only deny gays their Charter “rights” now but would also later try to remove the rights of other Canadians.
Using the big lie technique of totalitarian regimes, Martin made frequent references to “rights”, “humans rights” and the Liberal-Party-created “Charter of Rights” throughout his speech, with the obvious hope that, no matter how outrageous, his claims would be swallowed by gullible Canadians if repeated over and over again.
Martin stated, “I believe in and I will fight for the Charter of Rights” and, re-inforcing the power given judges to change and make laws, he said, “The charter is a living document. It is the heartbeat of our Constitution”.
The PM also told Canadians that Pierre Trudeau’s Charter “declares that as Canadians we live under a progressive and inclusive set of fundamental beliefs about the value of the individual.” To many Canadians this is likely quite a surprise. For one, sexual orientation, to which “inclusive” usually refers, was deliberately excluded from the Charter by its framers.
Slugging a low blow at marriage defenders the Prime Minister stated, “Those who value the Charter, yet oppose the protection of rights for same-sex couples, I ask them, if the prime minister and a national government are willing to take away the rights of one group, what is there to say that they will stop at that?”
For the Liberals, the strategy is to manipulate Canadians to believe that, rather than the preservation or weakening of marriage and family, the issue is about rights and their sacred Charter, which has allowed their appointed judges to invent rights, change laws and oppress opponents of Liberal Party ideology.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper called Martin on his insult to Canadians who support traditional marriage.
“The greater message in his speech is that if we do not accept his particular views on this piece of legislation then we are not truly Canadian, and that, Mr. Speaker, is something that this party will never accept,” said Harper.
In a well crafted, lengthy speech Harper stressed that “Same sex marriage is not a human right.”
He noted that no national or international court in the world had ever declared same sex marriage a human right.
Harper also noted that the notwithstanding clause need not be used for parliament to enact legislation defending the traditional definition of the family and gave ample evidence that the court may in fact not overrule such legislation.
In addition to Harper’s numerous effective counter points to Liberal arguments for the bill, however, were references to the need for a “compromise” on what many pro-family advocates would say he nor anyone else has a right to compromise.
That is, the unique rights of marriage, whether under the name of marriage, civil unions or whatever terminology should be reserved only for true marriage. Opinion polls and an eye to the next election, rather than any faith in principles, obviously determined this Conservative strategy.
The Conservative leader stated, “we believe that we can and should offer a compromise that would win the support of the vast majority of Canadians who seek some middle ground on the issue.” He also added, “We have every reason to believe that if the House moved to bring in a reasonable, democratic, compromise solution … that the Supreme Court of Canada would honour such a decision by Parliament.” Harper followed through on his comments by proposing an amendment that impossibly tried to both defend marriage and satisfy those who would destroy marriage.
The amendment calls on the House to decline second reading of the bill which would kill the bill. However, in addition to the reason given that the bill fails to define “marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”, the Conservative amendment contradicts itself by stating that another reason to oppose the bill is that it fails to extend to “other civil unions…the same rights and benefits and obligations as married persons”.
The full amendment states: “This house declines to give second reading to Bill C-38, An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes, since the principal of the bill fails to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others and fails to fails to recognize and extend to other civil unions established under the laws of the provinces the same rights and benefits and obligations as married persons.”
See also Cotler Revealingly Praises “Constitutional Revolution” Caused by the Canadian Charter of Rights
See the complete text of Paul Martin’s speech on LifeSiteNews.com.
See the complete text of Stephen Harper’s speech.