Ted Morton's Bill 208 is now posted on the Assembly website. It's very important that this sort of mean spirited and discriminatory legislation be stopped before it can become law in Alberta.If passed, Bill 208 will amend the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act, the Schools Act, and the Marriage Act to propose that:
1. educational information about gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgendered rights will will be optional in public schools.
2. public marriage commissionaires could opt out of performing same-sex marriages.
3. that a person expressing their opinion/ideas about homosexuality could not have a claim of discrimination brought against them.
Here is what you can do to STOP BILL 208!
- Phone, Fax, or Email Ted Morton and tell him why you oppose Bill 208 (cc the email to your MLA):
Email: foothills.rockyview@assembly.ab.ca
Constituency Phone: 1-866-843-4314 (toll-free)
Constituency Fax: (403) 216-2225
Legislature Phone: (780) 422-2768
Legislature Fax: (780) 422-1671
- Phone, Fax, or Email your MLA and let them know why you oppose Bill 208. Find your MLA here. Ask your MLA to table your email in the Assembly.
- Come and show your opposition to Bill 208 at the Alberta Legislature on Monday August 28. To get passes to the visitors gallery and be introduced in the Assembly, please call the Liberals (Contact Jill Roszell at (780) 422-0013 or jill.roszell@assembly.ab.ca) or the NDP (Contact Anand Sharma at (780) 415-1803).
Monday's session will run from 1:30pm to around 5:30pm. You must register before 11am on Monday August 28 as they need to send the list of people to the Speaker's Office so you can be introduced.
(Updated with amendments)
:( it's hard to live here.
ReplyDeleteI hear you kris.
ReplyDeleteTake heart though - there is absolutely NO CHANCE that bill will survive a Charter challenge. Sure, the Tories are wasting taxpayers money, yet again, for their stupid, small minded, petty politics, but when has that ever stopped them. Thank god (and Trudeau) for the Constitution!
Gayle
Thanks, Dave. I emailed Ted Morton and my MLA Dave Eggen this afternoon. Let's hope Bill 208 fails like it should!
ReplyDeleteI think the government and the leadership candidates are taking a close look at the reaction to this bill. It will not pass as a pmb but I think it will resurface as a govt bill down the road if they determine that it will shore up their base on the far right.
ReplyDeleteI downloaded the bill and was surprised at how stupid it was. Bad thing to read first thing in the morning.
Not allowing information about rights in schools is deeply disturbing. Schools can and must teach our children their rights - all of them.
ReplyDeleteI have no real problem with the idea of marriage commissioners being given the choice of declining to perform services (2) and protecting people from allegations of discrimination for expressing an opinion (3). To me, these represent the defence of personal freedom.
Marriage Commisioners are PUBLIC SERVANTS. There is a separation of church and state and if they have have a personal religious problem with marrying same-sex couples, they're in the wrong job.
ReplyDeleteThe third amendment will simply make it legal for a small group of anti-gay activists to spew their ignorant message.
I think most marriage commisioners are private individuals who have earned the right to perform civil marriage ceremonies? I do not think they are public servants so they should not be obliged to implement public policy.
ReplyDeleteI say let the anti-gay activists say what they want. If we take away their freedom of speech, we take away our own.
I'll be supporting it. Gays should not be setting the agenda in this country and acting like their lifestyle is normal. Its not. However what they do in their privacy, no one should care. All this bill does is prevent homosexuality from becoming mainstream and treated like its normal.
ReplyDelete1. information about gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgendered rights will not be allowed in schools.
ReplyDeleteDave, I must say I'm surprised you'd post this, after it was pointed out to you in the other thread that it's completely untrue. The bill only allows individual students to opt out of classroom discussions on SSM and gay issues, not ban them altogether.
If this bill goes through it will soon be challenged. The government will then spend millions of dollars defending it - maybe all the way up to the Supreme Court. They will lose, but not before they spent millions of dollars of OUR money just to score a few political points.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I am on this rant, let me explain how the conservatives will also score points with their big supporters. Rather than allow lawyers who are already on the government payroll appear in court, they will retain a private law firm - probably the same law firm they retained for all the other court challenges that they lost (ie. the Vriend case). As I said earlier, they will pay this firm with our tax money, for a case they already know will lose. In return, this firm will make a sizeable donation to the conservative party. Nice little profit making scheme and it scores points with the ignorant right wing voters.
Not that I am bitter...
Gayle (a lawyer who knows of which she speaks)
"Dave, I must say I'm surprised you'd post this, after it was pointed out to you in the other thread that it's completely untrue. The bill only allows individual students to opt out of classroom discussions on SSM and gay issues, not ban them altogether."
ReplyDeleteSo, a student in a public school can opt out the of the part of his/her Social Studies class that talks about Same-sex marriage and gay rights? What? This Bill would allow religious attitudes to determine what is taught in public schools. What's next? Students who don't like French people can opt out of the Quebec portion of social studies class? The Aboriginal portion?
The mentality that "if they don't know about it, it doesn't exist" leads to a closed minded and shallow society. Let's discuss it in the classrooms of our province. What is Ted Morton afraid of? Does he think that students will "catch the gay" if they know that there is such a thing in the outside world. What a smallminded idea.
Man, I wish I could have opted out of Math when I was in High School. Calculus offended my religious sensibilities.
ReplyDeleteDamn liberals. Trying to force their belief in "mathematics" down my throat.
What looney group will we allow into the classrooms next . . . the teachers unions think terrorists are ok . . . does that mean we will let them recruit in our schools???
ReplyDeleteIt too bad kids can't just deal with reading, riting and rithmatic . . . maybe they could function then when they got to college, unlike most of the illiterates today!
All Canadian males have the same rights, they can marry a woman of their choice . . . but I know that's soooo unfair!!!
It's clear that our children are not smart enough to think for themselves. If we don't allow our children to opt-out of these unsavory educations, the moral core of our society will rot. I say: Down with Public Schools! There is no room for anti-religious secularistic liberal/communist crusaders in our schools. Fully religious schools are the only solution! GOD IS THE ONLY WAY!
ReplyDeleteI think I speak for all of those in the Progressive Conservative Party when I say that I think this is a great bill. We can't let the Gays and special interests run our province.
ReplyDeleteI am a lifelong Conservative voter. I don't think gay marriage is right, but that doesn't give me the right to discriminate against them.
ReplyDeleteCanadians need to be a tolerant society that doesn't allow minorities to be singled out and discriminated against.
Ted Morton's Bill 208 will allow self-ritious bigoted and backwards groups to discriminate against this minority.
Bill 208 is anti-conservative and anti-Canadian. It is simply another example of how the religious right is taking over the Conservative Party.
Daveberta, I support you on this 100%.
ReplyDeleteThe Bill has been ammended, but the ammendments don't make it any less offensive or discriminatory.
ReplyDeleteI think it's terrible that Ted Morton is using the bill to purely score up support in his bid for the PC leadership. Shame on Ted Morton.
Wow. Welcome to Kansas North.
ReplyDeleteIf this is Ted Morton's opinion of homosexuality in education I wonder what his opinion of evolution in Education is?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Republican Ted would be better off in Kansas?
For all the talk of not being like certain segments of American political culture we sure sound like them here: blind partisanship. If you support this bill you must be: bigoted, backward-looking, and a religious fanatic; if you're for it, you're progressive, tolerant, patriotic. Too bad generalized monoliths never hold water when scrutinized. For Canadians who are apparently more dialectic and dialogic than their American cousins, we sure sound as shallow in our comments and analysis. So much for substance, bring on the rhetoric!
ReplyDeleteDave, if memory serves, your original post showed something very different than the revised version. Yesterday it read that same-sexed marriage rights will not be taught in schools. Today it reads that it is optional.
ReplyDeleteThere is a hint of discrimination in the Act and it was probably introduced for the wrong reasons. However, it defends freedom of religous and moral values so there is no valid basis for opposition.
Which part of the Bill are you opposed to? I support the ability for someone to no marry someone they feel should not. Unless that is a justice of the peace (a person who works for government) a person should be allowed to say "no, I cannot do that with a clean conscience." A minister, for example, does not work for the people but for a congregation and therefore his/her allegiance is first to his congregation and to his/her faith.
ReplyDeleteA person should be allowed to speak out about their feelings on a particular type of relationship if they desire to. Someone speaking against SSM is expressing an opinion, do we want opinions to be suppressed? This is not an action, this is not a call to action but merely an expression of opinion. Is this criminal?
The optionality of teaching this subject in school is an issue by itself. In school there is a captive audience. This is why expressing ideas such as Holocaust denying are illegal in such a setting. This option does not allow for speaking against the issue, it is an option to speak about SSM or not.
I think there is a distinct difference about speaking ines personal opinions and being hateful and biggoted.
ReplyDeleteIf this was only about peoples respectful opinions there would not be an issue - we'd discuss it openly and respectfully... but thats not the case.
This is more about a certain segment of our population (Namely the Christian Right) trying to irradicate any validity or acceptance of another segment of our population. It is hateful and intolerant.
"Dave, if memory serves, your original post showed something very different than the revised version. Yesterday it read that same-sexed marriage rights will not be taught in schools. Today it reads that it is optional."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I amended the post to reflect the new amendments to the Bill.
okay, cool it down with the name calling, folks.
ReplyDeleteI believe Bill 208 is a bad and offensive peice of legislation and this post is about how you can stop it, not how you can insult Ted Morton and his ilk.
Thanks Dave. I support Bill 208 and I am neither bigoted nor a homophobe (and neither is Dr Morton for that matter) regardless of how many times people care to recklessly throw around such accusations.
ReplyDeleteI would also encourage Dave Hancock to advertise his opposition to Bill 208 on his webpage if he and his team feel so strongly about it.
Agreed, Dave. The one thing I really don't like about the same-sex marriage debate is that both sides usually end up yelling at each other rather than have a debate. I think this was the worst flaw of the Federal Civil Marriage Act debate.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a problem with gay marriage and don't really see a need for Bill 208, but I wish both sides (lefties and righties) would stop yelling!!!
I wrote an email to my MLA Harry Chase this morning. Let's hope this bill get's crushed on Monday!
ReplyDeleteI had an opportunity to ask Kevin Taft what the Libs were going to do about this Bill, and he didn't think it was going anywhere. He said there are many Conservatives that don't like the Bill and will be voting against it.
ReplyDeleteBut its clear that Morton is using the Legislature as a way of increasing his profile for his leadership run. Shameful.
kgp
The tactics worked and the bill is dead for now, which is surely a good thing. Still, I would like to have seen the various Tory leadership wanna-be's pushed into a recorded vote on this issue. Mary Anne Jabonkers certainly made her position clear...
ReplyDeleteDing dong, Bill 208 is dead. Which Bill 208? The wicked 208...
ReplyDeleteMadman Morton is talking about bringing it back again...*Beats head against wall repeatedly*
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, Emil Vargas.
ReplyDelete"I'll be supporting it. Gays should not be setting the agenda in this country and acting like their lifestyle is normal. Its not. However what they do in their privacy, no one should care. All this bill does is prevent homosexuality from becoming mainstream and treated like its normal."
Exactly. Precisely. Too bad the bill didn't pass.