Pronouncing Oligarchical Persecution, Everywhere

August 1, 2003 6:46 AM

The Pope really disapproves of gay marriage. He says "people extending cohabitation rights 'need to be reminded that the approval or legalisation of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil.'" He "also described gay sex as inhuman and gay couples adopting children as 'doing violence'."And some people thought Bush was bad!
posted by Blue Stone (32 comments total)

I'm sitting out this round. Who's with me?
posted by Space Coyote at 6:48 AM on August 1, 2003

I don't believe that the Pope says anything nowadays besides long strings of repetitive consonants and occasional Polish swear words from his youth.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:50 AM on August 1, 2003

Blue Stone do your homework chap. This was discussed yesterday.
posted by Frasermoo at 6:52 AM on August 1, 2003

Considering his profession, who gives a rat's ass what the pope thinks about marriage anyway? I'm gonna move to Canada, buy a huge bong, and ask Jean Chretien to marry me.
posted by vraxoin at 6:58 AM on August 1, 2003

Been there, done that. My soap box is all foamed out...
posted by Perigee at 6:59 AM on August 1, 2003

You know what? I no longer blame the ignorant 'leaders' who spout this crap.

Rather, I blame the ignorant followers who enable them. Problem is, there are millions of them..
posted by eas98 at 7:02 AM on August 1, 2003

Oh my goodness, Frasermoo, you appear to be right.
posted by Blue Stone at 7:09 AM on August 1, 2003

I agree with the pope.
posted by Addiction at 7:13 AM on August 1, 2003

In my defence, I totally missed the story on the main page (I think "Medieval" switched my boredom brainwaves on) and a search for "Pope gay marriage" throws up nothing, whereas "gay marriage"...

Please don't hurt me.
posted by Blue Stone at 7:16 AM on August 1, 2003

He's old and soon will die.

So there's that.
posted by Outlawyr at 7:17 AM on August 1, 2003

Oh good - we're not doing it all over again. Blue Stone, fwiw, the discussion is still going on in the old thread. Well. At least I hope someone will comment after me...
posted by widdershins at 7:22 AM on August 1, 2003

Here or there?
posted by ginz at 7:26 AM on August 1, 2003

My favorite part of this whole thing is the protests that are going on outside the Vatican about this issue. One photo I saw had a bunch of people with a sign that was unfortunately in Italian (I couldn't read it), but what I could see was a few images of human genes and big bold words: "NO GOD." I bet they wish it was the dark ages again!
posted by crazy finger at 7:31 AM on August 1, 2003

Its ironic given the number of men who've kissed his ring.
posted by biffa at 7:38 AM on August 1, 2003

as if the catholic church has any moral high ground to stand on anyway.
posted by mcsweetie at 7:42 AM on August 1, 2003

billions, in the case of the catholic church.
posted by delmoi at 7:45 AM on August 1, 2003

Excellent post title BTW!!
posted by dash_slot- at 7:50 AM on August 1, 2003

Well, colour me gobsmacked.
posted by Pericles at 7:52 AM on August 1, 2003

Homofilter. Enough already.
posted by 111 at 8:05 AM on August 1, 2003

Yeah, 111 has already told you that being a homo is wrong. Do we need to talk about this anymore?
posted by eyeballkid at 8:22 AM on August 1, 2003

Uh, considering that Canada's predominant religious tendencies are Catholic, our next PM is a devout Catholic, and there is no required separation of church and state in Canada (the government funds Catholic schools, among other things), moving here to avoid the Pope's wishes may not be the best plan.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 8:24 AM on August 1, 2003

'Uh',' both Chretien and Martin have said that they respect the re-animated excrement's opinion on gay marraige, but that they both believe in a separation of church and state. The liberals have worked too hard for too long to position themselves with a lot of minorities, and they aren't going to let papal mutterings turn that into a train wreck. If anyone torpeodos it, it won't be those two.
posted by holycola at 8:44 AM on August 1, 2003

Martin's waffling. The only reason he's going to let it go by is naked ambition to be PM (which I wholly support him choosing to pursue if it legalises gay marriage). The vote itself is going to be a vote of conscience according to Chretien, which means no party discipline, and great chunks of the Liberal caucas, especially the rural portions thereof, are already rebelling. An Alliance-Tory-Bloc alliance backed by rural Liberal MPs defeating this in an open vote in the house of Commons is at this point looking possible, though not yet probable.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 8:52 AM on August 1, 2003

The thing is the bill that is being proposed is only a stamp of approval on what the courts have already decided is a matter of rights (in ontario, anyway.) So if this bill is defeated it won't stop same sex couples in ontario from getting married, but it will take court challenges in the other provinces to get it through there. But Alberta and (embarrassingly) New Brunswick were already going to fight it whether it was federal legislation or through the courts.
posted by Space Coyote at 9:10 AM on August 1, 2003

Space Coyote> It's not quite so tight as all that, is the problem. The ruling itself might be inadmissable on procedural grounds - the judges involved didn't merely throw out a law or section of law as unconstitutional, they actually rewrote it, as in, added new words that weren't in the original law under question. That's technically outside the prerogative of a judge to do, for obvious reasons. There's actually a pretty reasonable chance that taken to the SCC, the appeal court's decision would be thrown out on those grounds. While the federal government said it wasn't going to, any of the provincial governments could have / still could do it.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 9:26 AM on August 1, 2003

Pseudeophedrine> I don't know what you're thinking, but Canadian judges do have the authority to rewrite or "read in" variations on laws where those changes are required to make the law in accordance with the Canadian constitution.

Example, sexual orientation does not appear in the text of the 1982 Constitution as a protected grounds (for discrimination complaints) but the SCC changed the Constitution to read "sexual orientation" into the law.
posted by tiamat at 10:19 AM on August 1, 2003

Addendum to my last. That decision in the case of Vriend vs. Alberta can be found here

This is the case I mentioned in my last paragraph.
posted by tiamat at 10:23 AM on August 1, 2003

Why doesn't this have a "Dumbass" tag?

Oh wait, wrong site. ;)
posted by madman at 11:13 AM on August 1, 2003

Yeah... well, didn't the Pope also blame the child-molestation scandals on homosexuals, too?

Conclusion: The Pope is a homophobe. Whooooo, big shocker.
posted by nath at 11:26 AM on August 1, 2003

Ehhhh... I don't particularly like today's version of this discussion. I'll wait & see what flavor it comes in tomorrow, thanks.
posted by soyjoy at 11:28 AM on August 1, 2003

Tiamat> There's the trick of it, though. There is no statute that gives them that power. They just took it upon themselves in the Vriend case (among others) to do it. In fact, reading your own link, you'll find that one of the justices dissented on these very grounds, that "reading in" was inappropriate. Checking section 31 of the CCRF, you'll note that it specifically notes that "Nothing in this Charter extends the legislative powers of any body or authority," which one assumes would include the SCC. Do courts do it? Yes. Are they actually allowed to? Not actually. Has anyone challenged them on this? Not yet.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 11:48 AM on August 1, 2003

i am a popophobe. i fear ancient poles in funny hats selling indulgences from plexiglass automobiles. popes are a crime against nature. if god had meant us to have popes we would all have been born with funny hats, shitting in the woods. i'm sorry, i know this is considered a shallow, brutish bigotry, but there is simply no reasoning with me. dominus vobiscum. et cum spiri tu tuo. don't ya know that i love you, baby?
posted by quonsar at 12:52 AM on August 2, 2003