Same Sex Marriage and the Alberta Government

What are they so afraid of?

The caucaus of the governing party in Alberta has decided (with only one dissenting vote: Yay! for Gary Marr) that it will use the 'Notwithstanding' clause as a way to block any federal Same-Sex Marriage legislation being used in Alberta. This decision comes after their Solicitor General and the head of the party (Ralph) warned them that the use of the 'Notwithstanding' clause won't work, legally. So, what are they so afraid of? And what are they doing with taxpayers' money?

The court challenges to use the 'Notwithstanding' clause will potentially cost the Alberta taxpayer millions of dollars. Those dollars would be better spend on things that really matter, like Family and Social Services, child poverty, affordable housing, seniors' drug plans... but the Alberta Conservative Party doesn't seem to think so. They believe that its important to send some sort of very expensive message to Ottawa.

What are they so afraid of?

Or is it that the Alberta Conservative Party is afraid that 'society' is evolving? And maybe they just don't like the direction? This party, which has formed the government of this province, is supposedly in favour of less government, more privatization, more personal freedom (although we have yet to see 'accountablity' as part of that equation) and generally supporting the pursuit of personal wealth through minimal regulation. So, what is the financial gain from the banning of gay marriage?

I have heard that same sex marriage will add costs to the 'social safety net'. I don't understand how bestowing all the rights and privilidges of marriage on several thousand couples will so damage the safety net that we will all be at risk...

What are they so afraid of?

Are they concerned about a redefining of the institution of marriage and its effect on the family? I've heard the phrase "traditional definitiion of marriage" bandied about. Ya, so what? What is a traditional marriage, anymore? Hell, what is a traditional family? How does a guy and a gal in love, with his ex-wife and their children, and her ex-husband and their children, plus their common children, not to mention the different sets of grandparents, fit into the traditional view of a family?

Picking a fight that you have been advised by experts you can't win one (and one of the experts is a most contentious politician of some renown and supposedly has the respect of this caucaus) is an act of desperation or extremism. In some corners of this province, one can imagine that it is either. But one would expect that the governing party would manage to sift through all the rhetoric and hype and avoid the emotional pitfalls of this debate.

But then again, this party, and therefore this government, is a better sampling of the real population than most provinces. Not a lot of these folks are professional politicians, nor have they been exposed to the quasi-socialist agenda that so many believe drives the Universities in this country. So, to hope that they are not on the verge of desperation, or not to be succumb to the extremist views of the vocal few may be expecting too much of them. Or maybe there is something really serious going on here...

Is this merely a first step on some long overgrown and all but forgotten Alberta Conservative Party road to abolish divorce, decry the legality of common law marriages, combined with the uncovering of a hidden agenda to force the women in sanctified marriages back into the home and out of the business world so that the Alberta Conservative Party doesn't have to participate in a nationally mandated day care program sponsored by the federal Liberal Party?

It can't possibly be a pandering, subservience recognition of the more outspoken, slightly militant Christians in the province? Nah, couldn't be that... the Christian church throughout history has demonstrated that it is capable of evolving along with society. And also, of course, because the greatest of the Christian doctrines is summed up in the so-called "Golden Rule"; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Just this simple statement alone empowers the church to offer the same rights and priviledges to gays as to heterosexual couples.

So we still haven't answered the question: What are they so afraid of?

Is it the bias and bigotry of their constituents? Or their own?

Or is it just another way they feel that they can thumb their noses at a federal Liberal government?

What are they so afraid of?

Circles... and cycles

Watching it... watching the world go by... I've been watching it for nearly fifty years, paying attention in varying degrees depending on where I am in my life cycle. And I've started paying attention again recently...

It strikes me, more and more, that the observation "What goes around, comes around" is just way too true.

The use of 'circles' and 'cycles' in literature as metaphor for the natural order of things has been a fairly common practice. In fact, one can first see the use of the circle/cycle in ancient mythologies... nature as a cycle of birth>>maturation>>death>>rebirth. Most agrarian cultures throughout the world identified phases of the life cycle and developed rituals of celebration and supplication for the important phases... and some of it got kinda nasty, with varying degrees of sacrifice and other stuff that I won't go into here, at least for the moment. But let it just stand that the mythologies or fledgling religions were concerned with the cyclical nature of their experience...

Even the Greeks and Romans incorporated the birth/rebirth cycle into their religious observances. Demeter and her patient wait for the return of Persephone from the Underworld to announce Spring is just another attempt to explain, quantify and take the mystery out of the cycles of nature. Each culture has made the attempt to demystify the seasons, to explain the unexplainable existence of the universal lifeforce. Or would it be a more accurate statement to say that those societies tried to explain the magic and give it an even greater place of honour by wrapping it in stories rife with personifications that reflected the foibles and imperfections of their own lives?

Once you get past the basis of their mythologies, their early dramas also contained significant symbolism based on the concept of cycles and understanding of the interdependancies at work. Cause and effect became part of the cycle. And with each new 'cause' the cycle wobbles and extends, and grows and evolves. Our ancestors' mythologies went from explaining why the weather was bad ("Oops! We forgot to sacrifice the virgin this year!") to attempting to define and teach concepts of morality ("What do ya mean if I kill my father and sleep with my mother, my luck will turn bad?"). We grow... as individuals and as societies.

Each generation still needs to return to visit the ground already covered. Fashion is full of graphic examples of the generations mimicking each other...

Eventually, as language developed, some bright thinker coined the phrase "What goes around, comes around". And it truly does seem to... historians are constantly reminding us. "There is nothing new under the sun". "He who does not learn from history is condemned to repeat its mistakes".

But with each passing 'cycle', we move forward, sometimes incrementally, sometimes with great strides, sometimes with the sedate plodding of the tortoise, and sometimes with the erratic bursts of the hare. Each cycle adds a bit of something to the development of society, contributing to society's evolution, effecting change. Unfortunately, it is not always for the better... which is always a debatable point. Growth, development, change is always good; stagnation is the worst thing that could happen to us. That stagnation hits us all at some point in our lives, but rarely do the societies of the world slow to stall point.

And now as I tally up a half century of experiences, the cycle has my attention for a few wobbling rotations... watching it.