Via Christopher Johnson’s Midwest Conservative Journal, an excellent source of information about the ongoing breakup of the Anglican Communion, we learn that the Bishop of New Westminster, Canada, is not entirely pleased with the Canadian Supreme Court’s decision clearing the way for Parliament to recognize same-sex “marriage”. One of the court’s subsidiary holdings was that churches could not be legally compelled to bless such unions. To Bishop Ingham, “that means the ruling could be used as a shield to discriminate”. He would prefer that the law crack down on priests who disagree with his own notion that it’s all the same if a couple are pronounced “man and husband” or “man and wife”.
In all likelihood, His Grace will not be disappointed for too many years. As David Frum observes,
. . . what may be most remarkable about the Canadian debate has been its disingenuousness. I’ve been participating in this argument since the late 1980s. At every step along the way, it was obvious what the next step was – and what the ultimate destination would be. At every step along the way, proponents of same-sex marriage passionately denied that the next step was coming – or was even contemplated.
What is denied now is that anyone has any intention of making same-sex religious ceremonies legally compulsory. Yet compulsion in favor of the homosexual agenda has already overridden freedom of speech and the press.
Open debate is restricted: The federal government regulates radio and television to keep unwelcome opinions off the air. American programs that take a traditionalist view of marriage – Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s for example – were forced off the airwaves by government power. Individuals who express traditionalist views on the gay marriage question can be (and have been) harshly punished. (One Saskatchewan man was fined $5,000 for buying an ad in his local paper made up of verses from the bible.)
The court’s ruling is a feeble barrier against persecution. It is easy enough for a modern state to coerce effectively through indirect means. Ottawa might, for example, deny tax exemptions to nonconforming churches or refuse to grant civil recognition to marriages that they solemnize. Or the Supreme Court could simply change its mind on the ground that the further progress of enlightened opinion has rendered a vestigial “shield to discriminate” unacceptable.
In a climate where “nondiscrimination” takes precedence over the right to political debate, how long will freedom of religion persist? And how many modernist Christians will join the Bishop if New Westminster in applauding its demise?
Comments