marriage

Tuesday May 31, 2016

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Tuesday May 31, 2016 'Freedom and respect': Conservatives strike marriage definition from party policy Conservative delegates at the party's policy convention in Vancouver have voted to strike the definition of marriage in the party's official policy document. In a 1,036-462 vote, delegates from all provinces except Saskatchewan cast majority votes in favour of no longer defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. "I think our party got a little more Canadian today," Calgary MP Michelle Rempel said after the vote. "It's a milestone and it's not just a milestone for our party, it's a milestone for all Canadians.Ó "Yes, it took us 10 years to get to this point, but I think this is something that is a beacon for people around the world who are looking at equality rights. Canada is a place where we celebrate equality.Ó The result followed a heated debate and prompted some high-fives and cheers across the hall. It shifts the party's official position on same-sex marriage from being against the unions to neutral. Eric Lorenzen, from an Eastern Ontario riding, said during the debate that as a gay Conservative, he found it troubling that his party told him his relationship with his partner was not valued. "What other group does our party have a negative policy towards? A policy of restricting civil rights and restricting full participation in society?" he said, drawing applause. The result followed a heated debate and prompted some high-fives and cheers across the hall. It shifts the party's official position on same-sex marriage from being against the unions to neutral. Eric Lorenzen, from an Eastern Ontario riding, said during the debate that as a gay Conservative, he found it troubling that his party told him his relationship with his partner was not valued. "What other group does our party have a negative policy towards? A policy of restricting civil rights and restricting full parti

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 31, 2016

‘Freedom and respect’: Conservatives strike marriage definition from party policy

Conservative delegates at the party’s policy convention in Vancouver have voted to strike the definition of marriage in the party’s official policy document.

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Thursday May 19, 2016 Some Conservatives now ready to support bill on transgender rights When C-279, the private member's bill that would have added gender identity to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, came before the House of Commons for a vote in 2013, Conservative MPs Rona Ambrose and Tony Clement voted against it. This time around, Ambrose and Clement say they will be voting in favour when the Liberal government's bill to add gender identity to the human rights act and the code, C-16, comes before the House for a vote. Neither vote is likely to be crucial to the bill's success: with Liberal and NDP support, the bill should pass the House of Commons comfortably. But they could mark a change of opinion that might still be significant. Clement pointed to the influence he takes from his three children. "I have three children, ages 24, 22 and 18. They span the political spectrum but in their generation this is a foregone issue," he said. "They don't even understand why this would be debated.Ó He also says it makes sense that transgender Canadians should be included among those who have their rights acknowledged. While Liberals, New Democrats and 18 Conservatives supported the bill tabled by NDP Randall Garrison, Conservatives accounted for all of the 137 votes opposed. Clement says that in 2013, the advice to Conservatives from the Justice Department was that the bill was unnecessary because gender identity was already covered by the law. Ambrose and Clement follow Conservative MP David Tilson who told CBC News on Monday that his view had changed since voting against C-279 in 2013. That change of opinion is not unanimous. Conservative Senator Don Plett, who opposed C-279 and moved amendments that excluded areas such as bathrooms from the bill's provisions, told reporters on Tuesday that his position has not changed. "You know my feeling on transgender rights," he said. "They hav

May 19, 2016

In a 1,036-462 vote, delegates from all provinces except Saskatchewan cast majority votes in favour of no longer defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

“I think our party got a little more Canadian today,” Calgary MP Michelle Rempel said after the vote. “It’s a milestone and it’s not just a milestone for our party, it’s a milestone for all Canadians.”

“Yes, it took us 10 years to get to this point, but I think this is something that is a beacon for people around the world who are looking at equality rights. Canada is a place where we celebrate equality.”

January 13, 2012

The result followed a heated debate and prompted some high-fives and cheers across the hall. It shifts the party’s official position on same-sex marriage from being against the unions to neutral.

Eric Lorenzen, from an Eastern Ontario riding, said during the debate that as a gay Conservative, he found it troubling that his party told him his relationship with his partner was not valued.

“What other group does our party have a negative policy towards? A policy of restricting civil rights and restricting full participation in society?” he said, drawing applause.

December 8, 2006

The result followed a heated debate and prompted some high-fives and cheers across the hall. It shifts the party’s official position on same-sex marriage from being against the unions to neutral.

Eric Lorenzen, from an Eastern Ontario riding, said during the debate that as a gay Conservative, he found it troubling that his party told him his relationship with his partner was not valued.

“What other group does our party have a negative policy towards? A policy of restricting civil rights and restricting full participation in society?” he said, drawing applause. (Source: CBC News)

 

Monday June 29, 2015

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday June 27, 2015 The U.S. Supreme Court has made same-sex marriage legal throughout America, ruling Friday that the constitution gives gay and lesbian couples the same rights as straight couples. The historic decision invalidates the same-sex marriage bans of 13 states, from Texas on the Mexican border to Michigan and North Dakota on the Canadian border. The vote was 5-4, reflecting the deep divide on the issue in American society. The courtÕs four liberals were joined by the conservative Anthony Kennedy, who wrote his third landmark opinion expanding gay rights. In powerful, unequivocal language, Kennedy declared same-sex relationships no less worthy of the sacred institution of marriage than relationships between men and women. (Source: Toronto Star) http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/06/26/us-supreme-court-legalizes-same-sex-marriage-nationwide.html Meanwhile, a growing number of third parties are exploiting a loophole in the law that puts no serious restrictions on how much is raised or spent before the campaign officially begins. Canada's electoral laws are intended to limit the influence of big money in campaigns by enforcing strict contribution limits, making the names of all donors public and banning donations from corporations and unions. The newest entrants are Engage Canada and HarperPAC, and they are not really third parties so much as offshoots of the three main political parties. Engage Canada was started by two former senior Liberal staffers in Ontario, Don Guy and Dave Gene, and Kathleen Monk, an equally prominent federal NDP strategist. Take my word for it, because you won't find any disclosure of who is behind the group from its website. On the other side is HarperPAC. The name tells you all you need to know. The group is a "political action committee" in the U.S. mould and dedicated to re-electing the Harper government. It's the brainchild of Stephen Taylor, the form

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday June 29, 2015

The U.S. Supreme Court has made same-sex marriage legal throughout America, ruling Friday that the constitution gives gay and lesbian couples the same rights as straight couples.

The historic decision invalidates the same-sex marriage bans of 13 states, from Texas on the Mexican border to Michigan and North Dakota on the Canadian border.

The vote was 5-4, reflecting the deep divide on the issue in American society. The court’s four liberals were joined by the conservative Anthony Kennedy, who wrote his third landmark opinion expanding gay rights.

In powerful, unequivocal language, Kennedy declared same-sex relationships no less worthy of the sacred institution of marriage than relationships between men and women. (Source: Toronto Star)

Meanwhile, a growing number of third parties are exploiting a loophole in the law that puts no serious restrictions on how much is raised or spent before the campaign officially begins. Canada’s electoral laws are intended to limit the influence of big money in campaigns by enforcing strict contribution limits, making the names of all donors public and banning donations from corporations and unions.

The newest entrants are Engage Canada and HarperPAC, and they are not really third parties so much as offshoots of the three main political parties.

Engage Canada was started by two former senior Liberal staffers in Ontario, Don Guy and Dave Gene, and Kathleen Monk, an equally prominent federal NDP strategist. Take my word for it, because you won’t find any disclosure of who is behind the group from its website.

On the other side is HarperPAC. The name tells you all you need to know.

The group is a “political action committee” in the U.S. mould and dedicated to re-electing the Harper government.

It’s the brainchild of Stephen Taylor, the former Manning Centre and National Citizen Coalition activist, and a dozen former Conservative staffers whose photos and bios are prominently displayed on the group’s website.

PACs aren’t entirely new to Canada. In Ontario, a coalition of unions under the banner Working Families is credited, or blamed, for undermining the campaign of former provincial Conservative leader Tim Hudak in the 2014 election. (Source: CBC News)

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thursday, October 9, 2014By Graeme MacKay, the Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, October 9, 2014

Pope gets crash course in joys of sex

Pope Francis, cardinals and bishops from around the world got an unexpected lecture on the joys of sex, from a Catholic couple brought in to talk about what makes a marriage last.

Saturday, September 21, 2013Ron and Mavis Pirola, parents of four from Sydney, Australia, told a Vatican gathering of some 200 prelates that sexual attraction brought them together 57 years ago and that sex has helped keep them married for 55 years.

“The little things we did for each other, the telephone calls and love notes, the way we planned our day around each other and the things we shared were outward expressions of our longing to be intimate with each other,” the couple said in a joint statement to the closed meeting late Monday.

Thursday, March 7, 2013“Gradually we came to see that the only feature that distinguishes our sacramental relationship from that of any other good Christ-centred relationship is sexual intimacy, and that marriage is a sexual sacrament with its fullest expression in sexual intercourse.”

The audience of celibate men was a bit taken aback.

“That’s not what we bishops talk about mostly, quite honestly,” a sheepish British Cardinal Vincent Nichols told reporters Tuesday. “But to hear that as the opening contribution did, I think, open an area … and it was a recognition that that is central to the well-being of marriage often.”

Francis called the two-week meeting of bishops to try to figure out how to make church teaching on a host of Catholic family issues — marriage, divorce, homosexuality and yes, sex — more relevant to today’s Catholics.

Several of the bishops complained the Vatican’s own teachings on sexual matters are often impenetrable to ordinary people. The Vatican’s main document on sex, the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, lays out the church’s opposition to artificial contraception with complicated moral theological arguments and 41 footnotes.

The Pirolas told the gathering that they occasionally read church documents on family matters, “but they seemed to be from another planet, with difficult language and not terribly relevant to our own experiences.” (Source: Toronto Star)

Friday May 11, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday May 11, 2012

Joe Biden apologizes to Obama over gay marriage

After nearly single-handedly pushing gay marriage to the forefront of the U.S. presidential campaign and inadvertently pressuring President Barack Obama to declare his support for same-sex unions, there was only one thing left for Vice-President Joe Biden to do: apologize.

Biden’s apology came Wednesday in the Oval Office, shortly before the president sat for a hastily arranged interview in which he told the American people that he now supported gay marriage.

The vice-president expressed remorse and regret for declaring his support for same-sex unions ahead of Obama, said a person familiar with the exchange, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation. Obama accepted the apology, saying he knew Biden had only been speaking from the heart.

Biden’s apology followed days of frustration in the West Wing after the vice-president went off script, something he had done plenty of times. Without White House approval, Biden declared on a Sunday talk show that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex married couples having the same rights as heterosexual married couples.

Usually Obama can swat away Biden’s free-wheeling ways. But not this time.

Biden’s remarks focused a fresh spotlight on what Obama had vaguely referred to as “evolving” views on gay marriage.

What few people outside of Obama’s inner circle of six or seven close aides knew at the time was that the president had, in fact, finished that evolution months earlier and was waiting for a suitable opportunity to inform the public of his views. (Source: Ottawa Citizen)

 

Friday January 13, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday January 13, 2012 Conservatives suggest divorce law could be revised The federal Conservative government suggested Thursday it will revisit the federal divorce law to see how to more easily dissolve the same-sex marriages of couples who married here but cannot get a divorce abroad. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson tried to defuse a growing controversy with a potentially wide-ranging gambit. It was unclear if the government would also ease residency requirements for divorce for all couples, or would just move to address the need of couples who canÕt end their Canadian same-sex marriages abroad. The move came after revelations that a senior counsel for the federal justice department had opposed a same-sex divorce by arguing firstly that same-sex marriages performed in Canada arenÕt Òlegally validÓ unless also recognized by a coupleÕs home country or state. Lawyer Sean Gaudet argued secondly that the couple Ñ who married in Toronto in December 2005 and separated two years ago Ñ didnÕt meet CanadaÕs one-year residency requirement (that all couples face) for a divorce. One lives in Florida, the other in the U.K. It was his first argument that caused a firestorm of public reaction on news websites, and led to charges by opposition critics the government was moving to undo same-sex marriage Òby stealth,Ó as Liberal interim leader Bob Rae put it. The revelations in a Globe and Mail story blindsided the Prime Minister at a news conference in Halifax. Stephen Harper said it was news to him and muttered he was not interested in re-opening the gay marriage debate. Ê(Source: Toronto Star)Êhttp://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/01/12/conservatives_suggest_divorce_law_could_be_revised_to_help_samesex_couples.html Letters: http://mackaycartoons.blogdrive.com/archive/272.html Stephen Harper, Canada, Same sex, gay, marriage, can, worms, union, legal, conservative

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday January 13, 2012

Conservatives suggest divorce law could be revised

The federal Conservative government suggested Thursday it will revisit the federal divorce law to see how to more easily dissolve the same-sex marriages of couples who married here but cannot get a divorce abroad.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson tried to defuse a growing controversy with a potentially wide-ranging gambit.

It was unclear if the government would also ease residency requirements for divorce for all couples, or would just move to address the need of couples who can’t end their Canadian same-sex marriages abroad.

StephenHarperCartoonGallery-sm

2011-2015

The move came after revelations that a senior counsel for the federal justice department had opposed a same-sex divorce by arguing firstly that same-sex marriages performed in Canada aren’t “legally valid” unless also recognized by a couple’s home country or state.

Lawyer Sean Gaudet argued secondly that the couple — who married in Toronto in December 2005 and separated two years ago — didn’t meet Canada’s one-year residency requirement (that all couples face) for a divorce. One lives in Florida, the other in the U.K.

It was his first argument that caused a firestorm of public reaction on news websites, and led to charges by opposition critics the government was moving to undo same-sex marriage “by stealth,” as Liberal interim leader Bob Rae put it.

The revelations in a Globe and Mail story blindsided the Prime Minister at a news conference in Halifax.

Stephen Harper said it was news to him and muttered he was not interested in re-opening the gay marriage debate.  (Source: Toronto Star)

Letters to the editor.