Calgary Sun columnist Bishop Fred Henry writes an edited version of his speech he presented to the legislative committee on the same-sex marriage Bill C-38 in Ottawa on June 6, today.
He calls his column “Rights and Wrongs”.
[…] Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, recently quipped: “I find the separation of church and the state is one of the most beautiful inventions of modern times.”
He went on to add that the church is obligated to remain silent on the issue of same sex unions as the government and churches should not get involved in each others’ affairs.
It is significant no apology or retraction, to my knowledge, was ever offered for his offensive and ill-informed views.
The whole concept of separation of church and state is relatively recent, dating back to the constitution of the State of Virginia which was written by Thomas Jefferson and the slightly later Constitution of the U.S. to the effect that: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or preventing the free exercise thereof…” The First Amendment says nothing about various churches’ positions, it simply limits the government from establishing one or another as the “official” religion.
Canada does not have an equivalent statement, either in the British North America Act nor in the Constitution Act as repatriated. What Canada does guarantee is “freedom of religion.” This is found both in Parliamentary Act, (The Bill of Rights passed in 1960) and in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states: “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of religion and conscience.”
There is no statement of “separation of church and state” in either of these basic documents.
Religious freedom is central to the current debate about the re-invention of marriage. There is a growing spirit of religious intolerance in Canada and an inability to think critically.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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