Thu Jan 27/05
Welcome back, Cotler

I've complained before about the Justice Minister's confusion over whether the brand of marriage being altered is or isn't entirely civil, but seeing the two positions side by side in the same article makes it all the more annoying. First it has nothing to do with religion:

I think part of that division is there's a lack of understanding that what we're dealing with… is civil marriage… It does not touch the issue of religious marriage, it does not touch the conception of marriage that any of our faiths have.

And then, it definitely does have something to do with religion:

Cotler pointed out, however, that even civic officials can abstain from performing same-sex unions if such unions violate their religious principles.

Well, which is it? It's both, of course, which is why no position the government ultimately adopts will make a great deal of sense. The Liberals have struggled to maintain the illusion that marriage is one thing, when it is at the very least two. Such thinking can no more produce a coherent Marriage Act than flat-earthists can produce a coherent map. From an intellectual point of view, this fight has been lost. No matter what the legislation looks like, there's no way I'll be able to give it my wholehearted support.

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