CBC – In a move that supporters of same-sex marriage supporters swore would never happen, Orville Nichols, a Saskatchewan marriage commissioner has lost his appeal against a human rights ruling for refusing to marry a same-sex couple.
A tribunal set up by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that Nichols did not have the right to refuse service based on his personal beliefs, and ordered him to pay M.J. $2,500 in compensation.
Nichols appealed that ruling, arguing that his religious beliefs should be protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
But in a 39-page decision dated July 17, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Janet McMurty dismissed Nichols’ argument, concluding that the human rights tribunal was “correct in its finding that the commission had established discrimination and that accommodation of Mr. Nichols’ religious beliefs was not required.”
At the human rights hearing in 2007, M.J. testified that although he and his partner were married by another commissioner, he was devastated by Nichols’ reaction.
The Canadian government seems to be moving towards a place where no religious beliefs will be tolerated in the work place. Orville Nichols was not the only marriage commissioner in Saskatchewan, and another commissioner more than happily married the same-sex couple. Regardless of someone’s views on the issue of same-sex marriage, the Human Rights Tribunal has effectively stated that Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer applies.
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion.
How long will it be until the assault begins on other areas of conscience and religion?
How long? How about right now? Check out Jim Corcoran’s human rights complaint against the Catholic Church in Ontario.
what a load of crap(this post that is).
he’s not a religious figure; he’s an employee of the Crown and as such MUST uphold the law as it is written.
If he can’t marry people according to the law of the land then he needs to get another job.
His religous scruples don’t enter this situation at all.
First of all, this man was an employee long before same-sex marriages were legalized. And secondly, why is that every other religion must be accommodated, but not Christianity? If the RCMP is willing to change the dress code to allow an employee to wear a turban, then why not allow an employee to refuse something that goes against their conscience.
I would completely agree with you if this man was the only person capable of performing this duty. But when others can perform this same duty, with no inconvenience to the parties involved, what is wrong with that?
Seriously. This whole sense of outrage is a load of crap. You are overlooking a clear difference here. The man is an employee of the Saskatchewan provincial government. The law of the land changed (whether you liked it or not) to expand marriage to any two people that would like to enter this contract. His job is one which is to commission marriages. As a civil servant he needs to uphold the law or get another career. As a person that supports the equality of all people under the law (I a more libertarian type of conservative) I do not want my tax dollars paying someone who refuses to uphold the law. The law which is people who hold same-sex attractions are equal in this country and have every right to marry the person they love.
Nobody is saying a priest or minister has to perform same sex weddings. If the HRC or any government body forces that then we will have something to hit the streets over (anti-gay and pro tolerance people alike). But this is different plain and simple.
One shouldn`t get into the business of working for the government if they can`t uphold government policy.
So where does this go? If a government employee must surrender his/her right to religious freedom before they are able to deliver government services, should not that apply universally? I look forward the efforts to revoke the right to wear RCMP turbans, kirpans in schools, Burkhas, habits, eagle feathers, smudging ceremonies or prayers and dedication ceremonies, the closing of all chapels on government property, and any sort of religious icons worn by government workers.
Honestly…This is an asinine decision – where would it stop?
If religious conscience has to go in Canada why restrict it marriage counselors performing gay marriages? Dr. Henry Morgentaler M.D., for all that we know, is a G.P. (general practitioner) who does not hold any medical specialization in Obstetrics and/or gynaecology (for all that we know, he obtained his medical license by fraud and deception, see; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgentaler ) and in his medical carrier he performed thousands of abortions, many of them late term abortions. In the whole scheme of things timely abortion is much more essential service than performing marriage as it cannot be postponed (not for long). Instead of sending all Canadian women who require late term abortions to a clinic in US should we not demand that all current and future general practitioners in Canada performed at least one late term abortion in their medical career and one early term abortion a year as a condition of retaining their medical licenses??
Who needs a homo doctors who refuse to see for themselves how they came to this World?? Who needs a homo doctors who refuse to perform an abortion when genetic tests clearly show presence of a homo gene? Who needs a homo doctors who claim some religious objections while refusing to terminate lives of next generation of homosexuals??
This suspense is killing me as I cannot wait to see reliable scientific data proving that homosexuality is a genetic disorder. I cannot wait for reliable tests of amniotic fluids that will give every Canadian woman an early indication that the “blob of cells” that invaded her uterus will one day engage in sodomy.
I cannot wait to hear that selective abortion of future homosexuals and other sexual deviants is a perverse form of discrimination based on “future sexual orientation” that is also allegedly prohibited under Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In Alberta a human rights commissionare quit because “her life was made a living hell” by anti-HRC activists e-mailing her and phoning her and “slandering”-(yeah right) on the internet.
I consider that a victory.
To hell with this silly crap about debating these matters on some blog where low life lefty dicks (and closet homos) like backdoor blogger can whine and bitch.
Find out the names of the commisionares on the HRCs and take the battle to them.
Find out the name of the MLAs who appointed these asshole commissionares & inform those MLAs their political career is done. write letters to the paper informing others of the monster this MLA freely and deliberately created.
Inform that party (probably the ruling party) that if they keep that MLA the THEY are done.
Yo RCMP, yeah right above me here, take a long look at this one, we got a live one here.
Where are the re-education camps we were promised? Can’t wait for you nutters to be rounded up for re-education, except for most of you it will education since you missed out the first time.
Here’s what Orville Nicoles should have done:
When Nigel & Bruce came prancing into his office all giddy & giggly about their upcoming nuptials Nichols simply should have said “Sure! I’ll marry you what’s the date”? Then when the big day came . . . call in sick.
Wedding’s ruined? Tough. Screw them.
All he would have to do is go to his family doctor or a walk in clinic for an hour & complain of …whatever. Then he’s got documentation and Nigel & Bruciekins can have wrist flipping hissy fit until the cows come home. There’s NOTHING THEY CAN DO!
YOU CAN”T FIRE SOMEONE FOR BEING SICK! They couldn’t sue him either because he could be covered for legal costs by the union.
So … aww too bad princesses.
A friend of mine told me the story of how some church members he knew quietly told a new pastor they were hiring that if he even THOUGHT of performing a gay marriage then he had better not bother to show up for work the next Sunday, that they would FIND A REASON to let him go & make it stick.
Bottom line is that basically the gay lobby & their sycophants like “Backside Bugger – Oops Blogger” have all the legal tricks imaginable. They have all the judges & politicians & media in their back pockets. To fight them SSM opponents must think to the “LETTER” of the law but not the spirit. Like I said screw them.
Zorpheous Says:
July 25, 2009 at 4:20 am | Reply
Where are the re-education camps we were promised? Can’t wait for you nutters to be rounded up for re-education, except for most of you it will education since you missed out the first time.
====================================
Zorpheous,
I must admit that I have missed out on homo education in my youth, but if my memory serves me well these homo re-education camps that you mention were already tried in the past.
Is that what you have in your mind??
http://www.abidingtruth.com/pfrc/books/pinkswastika/html/the_pinkswastika_4th_edition_-_final.htm
THE PINK SWASTIKA
HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
We have now arrived at one of the most sensitive topics in our discussion of homosexuality in Nazi Germany. As we have noted, revisionists have attempted to define homosexuals as a class of people who were “targeted for extermination” by the Nazis. One homosexual group went so far as to stage a high-profile “pilgrimage” to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem in May of 1994. They were met by a delegation of Jewish Holocaust survivors who were so overcome with outrage that some of them had to be restrained from physically assaulting the contingent of (mostly American) political activists. One man cried, “My grandfather was killed for refusing to have sexual relations with the camp commandant. You are desecrating this place…” (The Jerusalem Post, May 30, 1994)….
The Guards and Kapos
There is one aspect of life in the concentration camps that is seldom noted by historians, yet is profoundly significant in this discussion. That aspect is the unique status of homosexuals in the camps. For while any prisoner could be chosen as a Kapo (a slave overseer), none other of the interned groups except homosexuals had counterparts among the Nazi guards and administrators (for example, there were no Jewish guards or administrators). Stephan Ross, founder of the New England Holocaust Museum, estimates that “about 20 percent of those guarding Jewish prisoners were homosexuals.” Ross was himself interned for five years in Nazi camps as a child and was repeatedly sexually abused by the guards. “[T]hey would beat you and make you do that [perform oral sex]” he said. “To this day I am very angry about it” (“Holocaust Survivor: Molested by Guards,” The Massachusetts News, April 5, 2000).
Examples of the homosexuality of the concentration camp guards can be found in many of the personal accounts of Holocaust survivors. Elie Wiesel, sent to the Buna factory camp in the Auschwitz complex, for example, acknowledges this in his book Night:
The head of our tent was a German. An assassin’s face, fleshy lips, hands like wolf’s paws. He was so fat he could hardly move. Like the leader of the camp he loved children…(Actually this was not a disinterested affection: there was a considerable traffic in young children among homosexuals here, I learned later) (Wiesel:59).
In Treblinka, the narrative account of the Treblinka uprising, Steiner records the story of another Nazi administrator, taken from interviews with survivors:
Max Bielas had a harem of little Jewish boys. He liked them young, no older than seventeen. He had a kind of parody of the shepherds of Arcadia, their role was to take care of the camp flock of geese. They were dressed like little princes…Bielas had a little barracks built for them that looked like a doll’s house…Bielas sought in Treblinka only the satisfaction of his homosexual instincts (Steiner:117f)….
Woah.. the masked slipped off good in this thread.
In a move that supporters of same-sex marriage supporters swore would never happen”
Which supporters? When? Links please.
This section in the Civil Marriage Act, was supposed to deal with the concerns some voiced for a situation like this. Supporters of the bill stated that this amendment would ensure that no one could be persecuted for their religious conscience in the matter.
Bill C-38, DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS, D. Freedom of Conscience and Religion (new clause 3.1)
The House of Commons Legislative Committee heard from a number of witnesses opposing Bill C-38 that a primary concern from their perspective related to the bill’s inadequate protection of religious freedom, and of expressive freedom based on religious belief, for both religious institutions and officials as well as individuals. The absence of parliamentary authority to remedy this perceived failing owing to the constitutional division of powers was seen by these witnesses as particularly problematic. Acknowledging that the solemnization of marriage and other practical contexts in which the guarantee of freedom of religion is engaged largely fall under provincial jurisdiction, some were of the view that the bill could and should enhance the level of protection available in respect of areas of federal jurisdiction. To address this perceived deficiency, the government proposed, and the Committee adopted, a new provision under which,
For greater certainty, no person or organization shall be deprived of any benefit, or be subject to any obligation or sanction, under any law of the Parliament of Canada solely by reason of their exercise, in respect of marriage between persons of the same sex, of the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the expression of their beliefs in respect of marriage as the union of a man and woman to the exclusion of all others based on that guaranteed freedom.
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LegislativeSummaries/Bills_ls.asp?Parl=38&Ses=1&ls=c38#dfreedomtxt
What really bugs me is that Justice Harvey Brownstone gets away with performing exclusively sams-sex marriages in his chambers located at the North York Family Court. If Harvey Brownstone wants to moonlight as unpaid marriage commissioner he should offer his services to heterosexual couples as well.
When he monnlights as an unpaid marriage commissioner during time that Family Court is in session the time he takes to perform these marriages should be docked from his salary as a judge.
http://www.samesexmarriage.ca/legal/ontario_case/appeal/pride_week_marriage.htm
Quote,
Toronto Justice Harvey Brownstone is more than happy to conduct a same-sex marriage for couples wishing to have the ceremony performed by a judge. An appointment must be made by email well in advance. Justice Brownstone is available to perform wedding ceremonies in his chambers any weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the North York Family Court, located at 47 Sheppard Avenue East, 2nd Floor (steps from the Sheppard subway station). Couples must bring their marriage license and a cheque for $75, payable to “The Minister of Finance”. Justice Brownstone’s staff sends the cheque, together with the tear-off portion of the marriage licence to the Registrar, so that the marriage can be registered by the government. No fee is payable to Justice Brownstone for his services. If couples wish Justice Brownstone to marry them at an off-site location, or on an evening or weekend, this can be arranged, depending on his availability. Please contact:
harvey.brownstone@jus.gov.on.ca
It doesn’t matter that this fella was an employee of the government; nothing overrides the charter of rights. Except, I guess, an HRC.
I agree with another poster above, he shouldve just called in sick. If the ‘couple’ continued to pursue him and only him to perform the ‘marraige’ then the commisioner could’ve had that dealt with in other ways. Calling the police to report a stalker comes to mind.
For other posters here, this isn’t all about equality, it’s about an extreme faction within the gay community that craves acceptance of them from ALL people, regardless of the tactics that must be used. And that’s a nearly direct quote from my gay cousin. According to her many (most?) gays were at best ambivalent about the marraige issue, it was the activists that wanted to push the boundries with a good number of normal everyday gays onside.
Brownstone gets away with performing exclusively sams-sex marriages in his chambers located at the North York Family Court. If Harvey Brownstone wants to moonlight as unpaid marriage commissioner he should offer his services to heterosexual couples as well.
This is an example of a judge who is blatently biased and that is being allowd by the government & judicial authorities because the gay rights activists have intimidated the judiciary.
If Brownstone were a civil servant in an EI office and he decided to open the EI office later than ordinary hours to process EI claims for GAYS ONLY would it still be as acceptable.
This is yet another example of the EXTREME HUBRIS of canadian judges and how it is allowed (& even encouraged) by the government & judicial authorities.
[...] General Brock comments on the recent ruling of the Queen’s Bench Court supporting a Saskatchewan HRT decision [...]
karol complains that Judge Brownstone “moonlighs during the time that the Family Court is in session” and there “his pay should be docked”. Actually he performs the ceremonies (including mine!) in his own time before The Court commences.