Montreal City Weblog

Kate 12:19 on 2025-05-26 Permalink Reply  

• H. John 22:37 on 2025-05-26 Permalink

  Pity. His arguments against same-sex marriage rights are still in my mind:

  https://openparliament.ca/debates/2005/3/24/francis-scarpaleggia-1/only/

• GC 07:55 on 2025-05-27 Permalink

  Thanks for that, H. John.

• Janet 09:14 on 2025-05-27 Permalink

  Still in your mind from 20 years ago…
  Happy to have you on this list, H. John. You’re a good, reliable voice of reason and, apparently, memory.

• jeather 11:49 on 2025-05-27 Permalink

  Did he ever say anything regretting it and saying he was wrong? I saw he was pretty heavily for “only civil union from the government” at the time, but my parents, who were about the same age, more or less agreed with that stance at the time, and over time moved fully into accepting gay marriage. (They were not, of course, politicians, and they were like many incorrect at the time — but that was the sort of moderate stance, once.)

  PP of course was very explicitly against gay marriage and now is not.

• Joey 14:53 on 2025-05-27 Permalink

  @jeather the remarks in the link H. John shared basically cover his position from 20 years ago, i.e., that religious marriages should be preceded by civil marriages; these civil marriages should be open to same-sex couples so that religious marriages don’t have to accommodate them. It’s not really rooted in any persuasive evidence, just a lot of blather about how he’s a classical liberal or what amounts to an argument that we as a society are nothing if we are not bound by the arbitrary exclusionary practices of the past. I think the only place you hear these tortured arguments these days is from like the Jordan Peterson corner of the world, which is just about all you need other know.

  That said, I would be curious about his perspective now that we have a couple of decades of same-sex marriage legalization – I don’t think you could conclude anything other than allowing same-sex couples to marry was not a big deal and was probably long overdue, that we didn’t need to twist our logic into ridiculous pretzels because, basically, some people find gays icky. You would hope someone who tried (and legit tried, even though IMO he failed) to muster up a reasoned and principled position might have evolved the way your parents did. You would really hope they would take that lesson and apply it to other civil rights issues (e.g., trans rights).

• H. John 00:15 on 2025-05-28 Permalink

  @jeather. Of course you are right. It was a widely held opinion. But your parents weren’t MP’s who had had the chance to read the decisions of the courts. When he shared his view three provincial Superior Courts, and three Courts of Appeal had already ruled that theissue was a clear breach of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

  @joey First and foremost religious marriages are irrelevant to this debate.

  I think you’re missing Scarpaleggia’s point. He was arguing against a Bill that would extend the definition of civil marriage to include same-sex couples. He was arguing it long after the courts had been clear that it was an issue protected by the Charter and that the government had the right to act to make the change. That was the Bill he voted against.

  He states:
  “I read with great interest the opinions of those who favour a redefinition of marriage, including the opinions of the courts and of some of my constituents and close friends. I am not indifferent to their arguments.”

  “The state may have overstepped its bounds on the marriage issue. Bill C-38 refashions the meaning of marriage in Canadian culture. On a symbolic level, Bill C-38 reduces marriage to a vehicle for the affirmation of mutual romantic and sexual feeling and commitment between two individuals. Marriage’s profound role of linking the generations and bridging the gender gap is no longer central to the institution.”

  “In January 2003, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights undertook hearings across Canada on the issue of same sex marriage. …”

  I testified before that Committee, and part of what I said was:

  “I just want to add to what the earlier presenter mentioned.

  In fact, the arguments being used are exactly the same ones as were used in the United States in the 1960s when the Supreme Court struck down the laws against marriage between races.

  I understand how fundamentally held those beliefs are.

  Although the laws were struck down in 1996, the State of South Carolina introduced a proposition to remove the old laws from its books, which was simply a way of tidying up the statutes. Forty percent of the people who came out to vote voted to keep the law against interracial marriage.

  I really do understand that beliefs like this can be strongly held.

  It doesn’t necessarily mean that opinion polls should lead the way. Hopefully, in fact, this is a legal issue and comes down to legal principles.”

• Joey 10:58 on 2025-05-28 Permalink

  @H. John good for you for speaking up at the time

  Are religious marriages really “irrelevant” to the debate? In the link you posted, Scarpaleggia invokes religious marriage quite often, and not as an aside. For example:

  “I favour engaging Canadians in a serious examination of a proposal that achieves both equality for gay and lesbian Canadians and state neutrality in dealing with marriage. The government should consider an approach raised by the Law Reform Commission of Canada: to create a neutral civil registry at the federal level, equally accessible to same sex or opposite sex couples, for the purposes of claiming federal benefits for individuals involved in formal conjugal relationships.

  “Following a two step process similar to France’s, where a couple must first visit city hall before being married in a religious ceremony, under a Canadian civil registry system, a couple, after registering federally and partaking in a civil union ceremony in provincial jurisdiction, could be united in a same sex or opposite sex, religious or non-religious, privately sponsored ceremony of their choosing in as public a way as the couple chooses. Some would choose religious ceremonies. Others would use private facilitators to help write vows and perform a ceremony in a non-religious location of their choice. Marriage, thus cut loose from the state, would be allowed to settle back into civil culture and community.”

  I suppose what he was really arguing for (possibly without grasping all the implications) was the end of all non-civil marriages…

• H. John 17:58 on 2025-05-28 Permalink

  @Joey I think Mr. Scarpaleggia knew exactly what he was doing.

  He argues that the feds should create a “civil union” registry. He doesn’t use the word marriage because he’s arguing that marriage should remain defined as “between a man and a woman.”

  Quebec already had a civil union system. There is a major difference in that under Private International Law civil unions, unlike marriage, are not portable. If you were married and you moved to Florida or Barbados, you were still married. If you have a civil union and do the same, your contract was not transferable.

  This what he voted against:

  Short title
  1. This Act may be cited as the Civil Marriage Act.

  Marriage — certain aspects of capacity
  2. Marriage, for civil purposes, is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.

  Religious officials
  3. It is recognized that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.