The issue here is the difference between tolerance and approval. The question seems to be so obvious as to raise doubts about the good faith of those who seem not to see it. Understanding, compassion, respect for privacy, and simular vitues mean we do not go about kicking open closet doors to embarrass the weak. Neither do we admit their weaknesses to a place of honor. To do so would harm those who might otherwise be able to restrain their unnatural impulses.

Cato the Elder used to say that those who rob virtue of honor rob youth of virtue. If one is so besotted by vice as to be unable to renounce deviancy, let that person come to terms with life in silence and not be held up as an exemplar.

I've come to think that mother nature is up and running the show and the finale won't be pretty.

The Court outside of its dopier obiter dicta here acted properly. The decision to allow same-sex marriage is a legislative not a judicial one. If legislators vote in favor of it, then let them go back to their constituencies and defend their choice. In a representative form of government, decisions about ethical and philosophical matters should not be rendered by star chambers immune from review or discipline.

Gotta agree with Bart. Frankly, I'm surprised the Canadian S.C. managed to restrain itself and leave it to the various legislatures rather than proclaim it the law of the land.

Twn:

Fair enough, but it also based its up-front, enthusiastic support for gay marriage in part on the decisions of some lower Canadian courts to the effect that restricting marriage licenses to heteros was discriminatory. As they are the Supreme Court, that surely is a new low in judicial jiggery-pokery.

Haven't read the full decision, but I believe they also held that the government could not force churches to solemize gay marriages. It is a measure of how deep is the rot that I actually felt thankful when I first heard.

Peter,

How else could they have ruled? The C of E permits gay marriage, and that is the effective national church of Canada. And by what right do you tell a clergyman from another faith, or for that matter from a congregation of which you are not a member whom he can and cannot marry? You may disapprove of it, but they are no less citizens than you are.

In Reform, marriage between two people of the same sex is treated as a congregational matter. There are congregations which perform them and there are ones where they are forbidden. The same is true with inter-religious marriage. While I believe in inter-religious marriage and patrilineal descent(two very untraditional Jewish positions) I would quit my temple were my rabbi to perform a same-sex marriage in the sanctuary, as I consider that contrary to Torah. However, I have no right and no standing to tell the Village Synagogue, in Greenwich Village, or the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side whom they can and cannot marry, let alone telling the Cathedral of St John the Divine or Riverside Church what they can do.

By the same token, it would be an arrogant usurpation of the freedom of conscience were the Court to insist that clergy perform gay marriage. The decision whom to marry is part of what a religious denomination is about and it should have complete autonomy to decide how to do so. Karyn's OCA priest told me in no uncertain terms that he would not perform our rites unless I converted to Christian Orthodoxy. He was perfectly decent about it and he was well within his rights and if you think I have any rancor about his attitude, you'd be dead wrong. Similarly, if a denomination won't perform an interracial marriage, like Bob Jones University, that is their business. They got rules. You don't like the rules, don't join the denomination.

Bart:

I meant I should have felt angry that the Government even put the question to them to decide and that there was any uncertainty about their answer.

C of E is effectively the Canadian national Church? That's news.

Peter,

Frankly, it's not a bad idea for a Supreme Court to render 'advisory opinions.' The US SCT does not, which is regrettable, it would save time and money. Our courts insist on something called 'ripeness' i.e. a real controversy between real parties, before they rule.

My understanding was that the C of E had arrogated unto itself the role of National Church in Canada, much as the Episcopal Church in America has something called 'the National Cathedral' in Washington DC, which for whatever reason is the first place a President goes when he wants to engage in religious posturing. (Jimmy Carter went there right after he heard about the hostage crisis, despite the fact that he is at least nominally a Southern Baptist.) Also, isn't there a dual school system in much of Canada where you have a choice of Protestant or Catholic schools? And those Protestant schools are for the most part Anglican? Anglicanism is not a state religion to the degree it is in England, but it certainly is the recipient of taxpayers' largesse, isn't it? If I'm wrong, I stand corrected.

No national church, no government support, no public Anglican schools, a separate Catholic school system in Ontario and a non-denominational English/Protestant public system in Quebec, both for historical reasons. Figures are here .