The Toronto Sun is running an editorial that brings up my oft brought-up point: Paul Martin was Mr. Defender of traditional marriage just a few years ago. He voted to keep the traditional definition of marriage.
Grits flip, flop … and why?
Fri, January 28, 2005The thing about Liberals is that if you don’t like their principles, all you have to do is wait a bit and they’ll have some new ones. This is exactly what Prime Minister Paul Martin and his party have done on same-sex marriage.
On June 8, 1999, Martin, then Jean Chretien’s finance minister, along with most Liberal MPs, voted in favour of the following resolution, moved by the Reform party and passed by the House of Commons:
“That, in the opinion of this House, it is necessary, in light of public debate around recent court decisions, to state that marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and that Parliament will take all necessary steps to preserve this definition of marriage in Canada.”
On the same day, Anne McLellan, then justice minister, assured Canadians that “the government has no intention of changing the definition of marriage, or of legislating same-sex marriages.”
But that was then and this is now. Today, Martin and most of his caucus have flip-flopped. They are now about to introduce a bill to legalize civil same-sex marriages. And according to today’s survey of MPs by the Sun’s Ottawa bureau, it will pass the House of Commons by a slim majority.
The Liberals now argue that the position they held just a few years ago in support of traditional marriage—a position still supported by several backbench Liberal MPs and most Conservatives—is bigoted, dangerous, extreme.
They say same-sex marriage is a Charter right—even though the relevant section of the Charter makes no mention of sexual orientation. That was “read into” the Charter by the Supreme Court in 1995.
Since then, the Liberals have done virtually nothing to protect the traditional definition of marriage in the face of a steady stream of court decisions.
In 2003, Martin and most Liberals refused to endorse an Alliance resolution on marriage that was almost identical to the one they backed four years before.
Now they say they have no choice but to follow the courts’ lead, even though the Supreme Court has not offered an opinion on whether recognizing civil unions for same-sex couples while preserving the traditional definition of marriage would be an acceptable compromise.
Meanwhile, the Liberals insist they won’t force religious institutions to marry gay and lesbian couples.
And this time they expect us to believe they mean it?
And Canadians are told by the liberals that the Conservatives have a hidden agenda. Wakey wakey, Canada.
(my bolding)
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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