Angry in the Great White North

From the Calgary Sun:

The most overlooked and disenfranchised group in the current debate about marriage are children. According to the government's agenda, Bill C-38, the social institution that has always symbolized our society's commitment to the future -- our children, will be transformed into an institution that symbolizes our commitment to the present -- the needs and desires of adults.

Marriage will have a new primary purpose, to validate and protect sexually intimate adult relationships.

Legislation which redefines marriage cannot achieve the impossible.

It cannot alter the simple reality that there is a fundamental difference between a relationship that, by its nature, has the potential to create a child and a relationship, that by its nature, absolutely does not.

Statements of fact, not of hate. Maybe more hate here:

The proposed re-invention of the institution of marriage means that marriage must be disconnected from procreation, and the traditional family, the only institution that honours a child's natural right to know and be cared for by his or her parents, must be dismantled.

This will effectively make children's rights secondary to adults and turn on its head the ethical principle that children, as the most vulnerable people, must come first.

Criticism of the effects, but no criticism of homosexuality as such. But here's the kicker:

Restricting marriage to the union of a man and a woman establishes that right of children as the societal norm.

In other words, it is a fundamental purpose of marriage to give children both a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents. Changing the definition of marriage to include same sex couples would openly and directly contravene both the right and the norm and would mean marriage could no longer function to affirm the biological bond between parents and their children.

When there is a conflict between what adults want and what children need, who should be given priority?

I'm afraid this is where Bishop Henry comes off the rails.

With all due respect to His Excellency, the priority goes to voters and well-funded interest groups, the louder the better.