[BRIEF NOTE] On Alberta

In my previous post, I'd forgotten to mention Alberta as a province opposed to the recognition of same-sex marriage. In the Canadian system Alberta is the most American political unit, though I suspect it would rate as centrist in the American political system: considerably wealthier per capita than any other Canadian province, considerably more religious than any other Canadian province, and so on.

Given that marriage is a federal responsibility, though, nothing can be done. Not that Albertans would want to, anyways.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] Dueck Dissected

It's suiting that, on the page after Lorna Dueck's article "Why? It's the family stupid?" on page A23 of the Friday issue of The Globe and Mail, Michael Kesterston in the "Social Studies" miscellany on the main section's back page summarizes Thomas Gruter's arguments, in a recent issue of Scientific American, about the necessary elements of conspiracy theories.

• Doubt that anything in the world happens by chance.


• Take seemingly unrelated events and give them a new meaning.


• Name an enemy.


• Expose evil intentions, the more common the better.


• Discredit authorities, politicians and officials as stupid or as being paid by the enemy.


• Establish a club of perpetrators and cite it as proof of your theory.


• Shield yourself from detractors.


• Issue warnings of looming evil acts.


• Call for people to be alert and for financial contributions.

Recently, Pearsall Helms has written about the ways in which American Christian and Middle Eastern Muslim conservatives have reacted to the intrusion of an unsettling modernity--particularly, Helms suggests, people from the lower-middle classes of their respective societies, people who are trying against great odds to achieve some measure of success in the face of a threatening and alien modernity. Their response is to try to construct an alternative vision of modernity, one founded on religious principles and marked by the sentiment that they are under attack by people form the outside, people who have been compromised fatally by their interest in foreign ideologies and cultures, people who lack the same profound attachment to tradition as themselves, people who are fundamentally dishonest in a conspiratorial method. Canada's not American, of course, but there is more than enough American influence on Canadian religion to give Helms' observation some measure of credibility in the case of Dueck and her article.

There are a fair number of interesting passages in her article. For instance, the opening:

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is a brave man.

Universal moral law is his battleground, and he's eager to defeat its boundaries with boldness and speed.

Well, at least she's not condemning him for being a Jewish corruptor of youth.

As the article continues, she makes it fairly clear that she has a very specific and exclusive definition of "family," and of family-related issues. For instance, towards the end, she argues that

There are enormous issues affecting the family in Canada, yet these issues never seem to make the headway this individual rights issue has. Children in poverty, the increase in single-mother usage of food banks, disabled children's right to treatment, the 65-percent rise in the number of children entering foster care, the growth in the number of grandparents having long-term care of their grandchildren, the child-porn bill stuck in legislative limbo, deliberations on national daycare--all point to great vulnerability for our family structures. They are issues we're loathe to see take a back seat to political wrangling over gay marriage.

Apart from conflating a variety of unrelated social and economic issues (childhood poverty, low family incomes, criminal law, national daycare) which are, in fact, receiving significant attention from the mass media and the general Canadian public, Dueck assumes that the attention being paid to the issue of same-sex marriage deprives other issues related to the family--or at least seemingly more closely related to her traditional definition of the family--of like attention. That's a dubious proposition, not least because of its implicit opposition of same-sex marriage to the issue of family generally (as opposed to what she defines as family). Just to make it clear what she's about, she tosses in some completely unrelated issues.

Some of the objections to the morality of redefining marriage is because of the enormous puzzle it presents to our social fabric. Do children have the right to know their biological origins or do we create a new type of Canadian who has to be content with being a product of donation into a fertility pool?

It's interesting to note that Ms. Dueck apparently shares the beliefs of Islam regarding the impermissibility of adoption, and unsurprising that she doesn't mention other methods (open adoption, say, or surrogacy). I suspect that she'd be no more receptive to the idea of a same-sex couple adopting a child under terms which would allow the child's mother to visit frequently than she would be to a closed adoption. You see, that would threaten the traditional model of the Canadian family being threatened, presumably by non-traditional foreign models. Or something.

She then goes on to talk about how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to God, and then talks about how she chatted with Preston Manning who said that the Supreme Court ruling threatened to cut off the living tree of Canadian constitutional law off from its roots in Judeo-Christian ethics, since presumably (though perhaps not the signers of the Charter) the founders of the Dominion of Canada wouldn't even have conceived of same-sex marriage. Apart from the question "whose God?" (if the God in question is Quetzilopochti, I will look forward to the televised spectacles of the ritual sacrifices of convicted criminals on Parliament Hill), constitutional law is dynamic. For instance, since 1929, Canadian women have been able to serve as Senators thanks to the decision of the Privy Council in London, despite centuries of prior tacit agreement that no woman would ever seek to escape her natural position as a non-political animal.

[T]he five men of the Privy Council decided, "the exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word 'person' should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?"

Arguments from tradition are notoriously weak. I'd like opponents of same-sex marriage to come up with stronger ones, if only because arguments founded on good strong principles would be fun to analyze and take apart. I'd like to be able to take Ms. Dueck seriously, I really would.

I don't think that I would ever be able to, though. Just one page column over, Rick Salutin in his column makes an observation of his own:

[I]n an interview by CTV's Mike Duffy with Charles McVety of Canada Christian College[,] Mike asked why it should bother him if someone down the street married a person of the same sex. Are you married? asked the minister. To a woman? shot back Dr. McVety. Mike seemed startled but said yes--with two kids. You'll have to redefine all that, said Dr. McVety starkly, seeming to imply this is a zero-sum game, not a case of win-win. What others gain is deducted from what you have, as if sense of self is a scarce, diminishing resource among us. For years, disadvantaged groups like Jews, blacks or aboriginals chose this route, fiercely affirming a unique self-affirmation when much else was lacking. Perhaps in our globalized, downsized, terrorized era, when everyone is expected to cut back, many others are driven to their unique sense of self as a source of solace--and then feel they are being told to share that out too!

Salutin's suggestion makes as much sense as anything else I've heard.

[BRIEF NOTE] And in New Zealand ...

Antipodean correspondent Errol Cavit has informed me that New Zealand has recognized same-sex partnerships, though not (yet) same-sex marriages. From Reuters:

New Zealand has joined a slowly growing number of countries which have passed laws recognising civil unions between same-sex couples, but has stopped short of recognising homosexual marriages.

The New Zealand parliament voted 65-55 on Friday to pass the Civil Union Bill recognising same-sex partners after lawmakers were freed by their parties to vote with their consciences at the end of a long and contentious debate.

Same-sex couples cheered and applauded from the parliament's public gallery as the result of the vote was announced.

Hundreds more gathered outside New Zealand's unique bee-hive shaped parliament, with the crowds reflecting an issue which opinion polls show has divided New Zealanders almost equally.

New Zealanders may now enter civil unions and have their relationships formally recognised from April next year, but the New Zealand Marriage Act still only recognises marriages between men and women.

Of course, the local conspiracy theorists are quite active:

Religious groups and other opponents of the bill had called it an attack on marriage and an attempt at social engineering by Prime Minister Helen Clark's Labour government.

"This bill is really, very simply, a present to the coterie of homosexuals and lesbians who surround the Right Honourable Helen Clark," said Dail Jones, an opposition New Zealand First parliamentarian.

But then, it just wouldn't be fun without their contributions. Myself, I know that I'd love to have access to some of the GLBT-associated power that they fear: a Bay Street condo and a six-digit income would be nice, for starters.

[BRIEF NOTE] What Happened to Yushchenko?

CTV, among other news sources, tells us:

Doctors at a private clinic in Vienna are confirming what Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko has been claiming all along -- that he was poisoned.

The doctors say Yushchenko was a victim of dioxin poisoning. However, they added that they're not certain the poisoning was deliberate.

"There were high concentrations of dioxin, most likely orally administered," said Dr. Michael Zimpfer, head of the private Rudolfinerhaus clinic where Yushchenko has been undergoing treatment.

"There is no doubt," Zimpfer told reporters at a news conference. However, Zimpfer added it was impossible to determine how the poisoning took place.

"We weren't there and we will leave that to the legal authorities to decide."

Well. Ukrainian politics in 2005 look like they'll be very interesting.

[BRIEF NOTE] Cheery Thoughts on the Human Future

pompe argues that as civilization becomes progressively more technologically adept and prosperous, human beings can look forward to increasing psychological anguish based on contemporary trends. Thinking more long-term, jhubert asks what will happen to human civilization when we stop progressing.

You know, as incoherent as it is, Star Trek's vision of humanity's future is attractive, even with the Third World War and the Romulan War and the Borg and the Dominion and all. It'd be sort of nice to believe in that possibility again.

[REVIEW] Two Notes on Music

1. This evening, I attended Rainbow Voices of Toronto's Christmas concert, held at St. Luke's United Church (353 Sherbourne St). I know one of the singers, and I enjoyed a show of theirs in May. This show was also very enjoyable, with the first half of the show being a showcase of winter and general-themed songs and the second half including a wide variety of Christmas-related songs, equally divided between secular and religious tunes. Despite some issues with relatively imprecise phrasing, it was a fun evening and worth the 15 dollar ticket to attend.

2. I'm glad that I own the Band Aid 20 Do They Know Its Christmas? CD single, because the CD's second track is the original stirring 1984 version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" That song, I believe, ranks as a great pop song, and not only because it had an impressive list of performers. It resonated, vocally and musically and thematically. The Band Aid 20 version does none of these things; its vocalists and musicians sound like they're floating through a pleasant narcotized haze, and this haze robs the song of its vital urgency.