Canada: Gmarriage: Stephen Taylor, Canadian Tory thinker offers non-Harper option, lots of comments

Besides my own proposal based on a political point of view with philosophical indebtedness to D H Th Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd, there has been the offering and defeat of Steven Harper's amendment to the Canadian Liberal government's proposal to destroy legal provision for marriage as such. Now, I have become aware of the thinking of Stephen Taylor (his blog: Stephen Taylor - Conservative Party of Canada Pundit; you can click it up via the blue title to this blog entry).

Here's the Comment I added to those of 30 others on Stephen's blog:

I'm grateful to Stephen Taylor for offering his insites and views, which in the end come down on the side of supporting PM PM's pm perspective, destroying recognition of the uniqueness of 1woman1man marriage and the state's privileging of a certain form of such kind of intimate union, in the interest of the state, when trad marriage is further considered as the mainspring of healthy offspring thru the special case of consanginuous and congenetic family-formation and maintenance to the age of nest-leaving. The concepts of marriage and different other intimate unions, on the one hand, must be kept distinct from the concept of family (parent/s, child/ren, siblings, birth-order) in both the consanguinous and the adoptive models, etc.

Stephen offers us reasons for going along with Martin and the Liberal majority, dismissing the significance of the 30 Libs who broke party ranks on that side of the aisle and the resignation of a Lib cabinet member to vote No in clear conscience, thus breaking cabinet discipline.

I think they deserve careful consideration. I certainly have been discontented with the offerings of Stephen Harper, CPC Parliamentary Leader, and with those of CPC Justice Critic in Harper's shadow cabinent, Vic Toews. Also very discontented with Catholic Episcopacy and the Fundie voices that stoked the engines of the public opposition.

I'm placing a notice for the moment on my own blog, refWrite, and may want to come back to offer here a further post in reply to Stephen's - because the Tory Federal party is at a critical moment in its orientation toward the structure of society and the place of the various societal spheres that keep differentiating within it, their differences and sphere-specificity, and the role of government, parliament, and the courts in relation to the various kinds of societal spheres. I consider there to be three distinct forms of intimate union, of which only trad marriage is formed by the couple across a huge array of the differences condensed into the expression "iwoman1man."

While strongly thanking Stephen, I also want to thank the entire thirty people who commented on his blog entry. I have read them all, Some of them make a special effort of expresson and argumentation, and deserve replies, in their own right. I, however, do not want to presume on Stephen's digital space; in my own blog however I'm more polemical and I think some further discussion in line with Stephen's marvellous calom tone here could possibly be helfpul on my part. I'm not a member of any political party, but the Tory option, were it to firm up in a way appropriate to my array of values (neo-Constantian, Christian-democratic pluralist, sphere specificity, etc), I don't rule out finding a political home in CPC. The three other party's in Parliament have lost all interest to me. The Greens could command some respect if they firm up in a cerain direction. The Christian Heritage Party is not pluralist enuff for me. I'm homo, so I don't like any policy that simply tries to do the Catholic Church's bidding on issues related to what it considers "an objective disorder." At the same time, I'm a vowed celibate, and I believe in the vowed life - also for marriage, 2women couples, and 2men couples. These intimate unions all exist in our society, no matteer what the state does, where it's own interest also comes into the configuration; but a stance of denial of existence and withholding all recognition, and apparent stinginess as to the different kinds of support that may be appropriate to all three forms of intimate union, cannot lead to social health. So Harper's efforts to amend and Stephen's capitulation to the Libs / NDP / Bloc, both deserve hearing by all Tories, but also critique in depth. - Owlb

Other considered Tory voices:

What Liberalism Hath Wrought, Tuesday, June 28 [written after the vote].
Owlb's Comment: Russ Kuykendall's posts on the so-called SSM are both valuable to our post morten reflections, and sorting out the way to go. I also appreciate very much the Comments here and in conjunction with the related post.

Thanks, Russ! Thank you all.

I've been discussing these issues in hi-ly polemic style and from a unique philosophical stance that Russ may be able to fathom, both as to what the law awt to be, and what the various parties from the Catholic Episcopacy to the the Fundie voices in the public opposition, to Harper, Martin and the gang have done to lose and win this round. My immediate concern now is: will other elements in the Fed Tories use this defeat to try to dump the entire "compassionate conservative" outlook within it. Russ calls his approach "Burkean" or "neo-Burkean." The press calls the Magisterium-obeying Catholics in the Tory Party "so cons" (social conservatives), when actually they are more particularly emphasizers of the Magisterium's "consistent ethic of life," of which the ecclesiastical judgment that homo-ity is "an objective disorder," serves as an adjunct. I don't want to be cawt in that stifling net. I think that's part of what defeated paltry "alternative" legislation of the amendments. That and the dogmatism and mindlessness of the Fundie Battalion, where reflective thawt never really offered a way out. - Owlb

Scroll down the same page as above to
C-38, the Civil Marriage Act, Tuesday, June 28 [written before the vote].

I think it is important to keep the concept of intimate union (three forms: trad marriage 1woman1man, 2woman, 2 men) distinct from that of family (parent/s, child/ren, siblings, birth order). When kept distinct, then one may fruitfully address the validity and importance of the state's interest in privileging that form of special inter-relationship between a marriage where the resulting family involves consanguinous and congenetic offspring, which the state goes to special effort to support as that form of connecting marriage/family with the hi-est probability of producing stable rounded young adults. But other forms of intimate unions (not perhaps so privileged by the state, because not considered by the state to be so much in the state's own interest to do so) still may help society and thus indeed may serve alternatively in the state's interest to see that all children have a good family-base for growing up as responsible adults.

Of course, I have had above, in order to bring into sharpest focus one feature, to hold off until now the parallel to consanguinous families which exists in adoptive and blended families. Also, the parallels to married parents, not only the case of a single parent, but also in a case of common law parents (which can be a very healthy nurture-environment for consanguinous offspring but is less trusted for adopted children). There's also the case of a group of more than two relatives, such as two aunts and a grandparent who can serve well in raising near-consanguinuous children. But, further, there's adoption by people who are in another kind of intimate union with one another, or two people who are not married, not common law, nor in a 2women or 2men intimate union, but just friends who on behalf of a child form themselves into a child-raising union based on the adoptive parents strictly friendship relation.

The numbers of parentless children is so large and the needs such children have, often so demanding, that the right of the child should precede that of any would-be adoptive parent/s. Therefore, anyone who wants to adopt should be strenuously checked out to make sure the hidden motive of a proposed adoption is not sexual, pain-inflictive, workhorse, toy or other form of abuse by the adults involved.

-Owlb

Canadianna writes a poignant blog entry on her site:
Canadianna's Place[written after the vote].

The following are posts by Angry in the Great White North to which I linked in earlier posts of mine here on refWrite, and along with his posts, also a number of Comments:

Angry's Intro post
Angry's latest theme on the Lib SSM win, also scroll down to Mark Collins: June 29: 12:38 PM. Also see:
Angry's more recent theme on apocalyptic scenarios re the Christian Churches in Canada - after their opposition to this diabolically-clever government of the Liberal / New Democrat / Bloc Québecois coalition with its NewSpeak about rights that are simply not inscribed in Canada's Charter of Rights.