Interesting.....

[patgund]

While channel-flipping today, I caught on CSPAN-2 the debate in the Canadian House of Commons today regarding that country's possible legalization of same-sex marriage.

What struck me as unusual was the person speaking against same-sex marriages, Opposition Leader Stephen Harper. His argument (after making it clear at least three times he was releasing the members of his party to vote their conscious), basically seemed to boil down to "Yes, we should allow some recognition of same-sex relationships, I just don't want it to be called marriage". He didn't seem to be as noxious as some I've seen against the concept of same-sex unions. (All the same, there's something about Harper that makes me want to shove a bowling ball down his throat. Just seemed really smarmy.)

Contrast that to the US neoconservatives that don't want *ANY* recognition of same-sex unions - or any recognition of civil rights for gays and lesbians, period. They seem to see it as a threat of some sort, (funny, I don't see my right to marry as threatened just because some same-sex couples want to marry too.)

The debate seemed a bit more in greyscale, then the black and white it seems to be in down here.

Comments

[catmcroy.livejournal.com]

Harper IS smarmy. He is also on the record (during the last election) of saying that he was against multiculturalism and having 2 official languages *sigh*

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm not doubting that. The Wikipedia reference on him sounds like he's trying to be a US-style Neoconservative in places. Unlike most US Neocons though, he was at least giving the appearance of trying to compromise, (though his attacks on the PM and Labour were straight out of Karl Rove and the GOP's playbook.)

And his dislike for having 2 offical languages didn't stop him from switching between the two in his speech. Take it that, like a US Neocon, he's also a flaming hypocrite?

[catmcroy.livejournal.com]

bingo *sighs*

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

I've heard that argument before...I can't understand reducing it to a matter of semantics, myself. What is marriage if not a domestic partnership and a civil union?