One way tolerance

The anti-family activists are furious. A private member bill has been introduced in the New Brunswick Legislature to grant marriage commissioners the freedom of conscience. The former NB-NDP leader Allison Brewer is already threatening with a Charter challenge if marriage commissioners are allowed to excuse themselves from registering perverts as married couples. She believes it would discriminate against those living abnormal lifestyles.

What the activists fear is not the situation when a couple of perverts couldn't register their relationship because there would be no marriage commissioners ready to give them the papers. The bill clearly states that additional marriage commissioners could be appointed if necessary so perverse couples willing to take advantage of the institution are able to do so. It's someone's right to oppose abnormal lifestyles that makes the activists worry. And to think this "someone" is a civil servant, a marriage commissioner... That's way too much for the anti-family activists. They want a lifestyle which is responsible for 2/3 of the AIDS infections to be accepted as normal; words like 'natural family', 'marriage' and 'family values' - to be excluded from our schools and workplaces and all of us who dare to think otherwise - to be sued for hate speech.

That's exactly what happened in Saskatchewan, where Orville Nichols, a marriage commissioner was brought before the "human rights tribunal" for refusing to register two men as a married couple. It doesn't matter that he referred them to another marriage commissioner which didn't mind to perform the ceremony. The perverts didn't want to take no for an answer in the first place. They wanted Mr. Nichols to give them the marriage papers despite his religious beliefs, let alone the self-evident fact that a men-only couple is biologically unfit for marriage. Somehow it's believed that while abnormal lifestyles should be tolerated by all, those shoving this abomination down people's throats have the privilege to tolerate nobody.

It was the Saskatchewan case that raised the debate about freedom of conscience in New Brunswick. Unlike the Alberta bill 208 which was blocked by the opposition, New Brunswick bill 37 has the support of both parties in the Legislature. New Brunswick Attorney General T.J. Burke spoke in support of the bill saying it does not contradict the Charter. Hopefully the bill passes and a blatant case of discrimination against one's religious beliefs, like the one in Saskatchewan, will never happen in New Brunswick.