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Loading ...Canadian province sued over gay marriage rule
11.26.2008 8:00am EST
(Prince Albert, Saskatchewan) A marriage commissioner is suing the Saskatchewan government after being fined $2,500 for refusing to marry a gay couple.
A Saskatchewan human rights tribunal cited Orville Nichols for discrimination in May for refusing to perform the same-sex marriage.Nichols told the tribunal last year that he refused to marry the couple in 2005 because it went against his Baptist faith.
Philip Fourie, Nichols’ lawyer, said the lawsuit demands the province give marriage commissioners the legal right to not perform same-sex marriages if it conflicts with their religious beliefs.
“This is clearly a horrible violation of Charter rights,” he said in a news release.
“This problem can be easily fixed by simply allowing the commissioners a right to decline and pass on the ceremony request to another commissioner.”
Saskatchewan Justice Minister Don Morgan said the tribunal’s ruling is binding on the province.
He said commissioners unhappy about the law have the option of turning in their licenses to perform civil marriages.
“We have sent a letter to all of the civil marriage commissioners indicating to them that it is an option to them to surrender their civil marriage certificate and to obtain a religious one if they wish to affiliate themselves with one of the churches,” Morgan said.
The case is to be heard in Prince Albert on Dec. 23.
During the tribunal hearing into the case, Nichols said he was contacted in 2005 by a gay man about performing a wedding.
The gay man, who can only be identified as M.J. because of a publication ban, found Nichols’ name on a list of marriage commissioners in Regina.
Same-sex marriage was made legal in Saskatchewan in November 2004. Marriage commissioners, who are appointed and licensed by the province to perform civil ceremonies, were told to provide the service.
Nichols, who has been a marriage commissioner since 1983, testified that he told the couple he would not marry them because it went against his religious beliefs.
He then referred the couple to a marriage commissioner who would perform the ceremony.
The tribunal said in its ruling in May that Nichols was acting as a public servant when he performed marriages and so was obligated to marry the gay couple because same-sex unions are permitted by law in Canada.
Fourie chided Premier Brad Wall and Morgan for being critical of the former NDP government on same-sex marriage and promising to stick up for the rights of marriage commissioners.
“The government promised to be different but they are not acting any differently at all on this issue,” he said.
“The pendulum has swung too far in favor of same-sex people and against people of faith.”
Unfortunately, this kind of legal challenge, where they pit a right of gay citizens to a civil marriage ceremony against the religious beliefs of the employee of the state…. is exactly the kind of propaganda used by Mormons and other theocrats to scare voters in places like California, that gay rights will trump religious rights….
They will use an example like this, and then say it is just a step beyond this that churches will be mandated to perform gay marriage. And ignorant dummies will buy that fear and vote against us….
I truly believe many of these episodes are planned out to provide the right the sparks they need to pull the wool over the eyes of the not-too-with-it group that are usually undecided until the moment they enter the voting booth…
The Radical Realist said
“Religous people fail at life.”
I politely disagree with this very untrue stereotype.
I am liberal, Democrat and gay. And I go to a very nice racially diverrse and gay welcoming church. Most of the people in my church are well-educated, friendly, very nice middle class young couples with kids, hardly what you would call failing at life. Many of these people support gay rights and we have gay people attending my church. I look forward to attending my church this Thanksgiving Eve at 7:30 pm tonight EST.
Yeah, religious people fail at life. As if we didn’t already know that.
This angers me. I will never understand why people apply their religious beliefs to the workplace. This is like the pharmacist who refuses to dispense the morning-after pill because it violates his faith. DO YOUR DAMN JOB!! If you want to make a religious statement, do it at church or at home. Leave your religion out of public life, especially the government. Damn zealots.
I wonder if that “recent Press Release” was dated before or after November 4th ?
Here Here, BearBoi! Well Said.
And a Big Funny Flag for Sean Martin. I had other irony (Trousers) to do before I actually caught on to yours!
Being Saskatchewan born and raised myself, I can well understand the mindset of most people in that Province. Saskatchewan as a whole is part of the Canadian bible belt, however that does not excuse Mr. Nichols from performing the job he was hired to do so by the taxpayers of the Province of Saskatchewan. The Human Rights Tribunal by recognizing the civil rights of all people in the Province were correct in their judgement and the levying of the
$ 2,500.00 fine to Mr. Nichols for not doing the job that he was hired to do by the people of the Province. For Mr. Nichols to come back now on the province because he feels that he has been unjustly treated is hogwash. Did he consider that by denying a couple their civil rights, for which he was being paid by the people of the province, that he treated them unjustly? It just seems to me that Mr. Nichols has obvious homophobe issues that go too far, and maybe he should have made a decision before gay marriage became legal to look for another job.
Philip Fournie, Orville Nichols’ lawyer, makes a blatantly homophobic comment himself when he says,
“The pendulum has swung too far in favor of same-sex people and against people of faith.”
That postulates that same-sex people *cannot* be people of faith. That is a bald-faced homophobic LIE. Despite two millenia of persecution by the “christian” churches, there are still a large minority of LGBT people who believe in God, Jesus, the afterlife, etc. … AND THEY HAVE THAT RIGHT! The anti-LGBT Romans, Mormons, Konservative Kristianist Kultist Krazies and their PAGAN FERTILITY CULTS can go pound sand!
If Nichols can’t perform his SECULAR, CIVIL duties, then he is in conscience OBLIGED to RESIGN his position.
I wish the same were true of homophobic US politicians and bureaucrats.
Bud Burgoon-Clark
a 2nd class citizen in my own country …
why do I have to pay TAXES???!!!
Why has this person not fired on the spot? I wonder how the case would be handled if he refused due to his belief against the “mixing of races”.
The veil of religion on the face of hateful discrimination is getting very thin indeed.
I love that last line. It fairly glistens with irony.
He was not asked to perform a religious ceremony. He was asked to do something that was part of his job. I’m getting more than a little tired of those who are using their religion as an excuse for anything.
I have taken the liberty to ask my US Congressional rep and my US senators from my state to repeal US federal level of what we call here in US DOMA or Defense of Marriage Act. Legal Gay Marriages are not recognized at US entry points such as the US Customs booths at Canadian airports miles inside of Canadian territory, which I consider an outrage.
States want to pass lawa barring their state from recognizing the gay marriages legal in foreign countries or in states like Massachusetts and Connecticut on the staee level there. Repaaling the Federal DOMA should kick the “legs out from under the states asserting their right to refuse recognition by the putting those states up for a more successful legal challenge since they could no longer claim legal backing from the US government on this marriage recognition refusal issue.
We have a full faith and credit clause in US constitution saying laws passed in one state have to be recognized in another state. Repealing the Federal DOMA re: the marriage issue would give longer teeth to this clause (by knocking out this excusse of no federal recogntion for gay marriages that are legal in their home states etc.)
Clerks refusing to perform marriage duties that are enforceable by law, should be promptly replaced if they refuse to perform. Plenty of people wanting jobs here in the US or Canada and rapid replacement of a clerk unwilling to meet the lawful requirements of the job should be very easy.
If for some reason one is not able to do their job then they should find another job. Jews do not take positions as pork tasters!
This person is just upset that he was found to be wrong. Prince Albert Saskatchewan is a back-water blue collar city of 20,000 +/-, people. Any resistace to gay marriage their is not surprising.
If you do not agree with your job FIND ANOTHER ONE. If your job is paid for by the taxpayers, you must do your job for all taxpayers.
the guy is an idiot and if he wants to bring his religion into his job, he needs to go work for a church.
These marriages are not religious. They are secular, civil contracts officiated by these government-employed commissioners.
His religious beliefs do not apply.
If he is a Catholic, he still must issue civil, secular marriages to divorced-Catholics whom the RCC will no longer marry.
Ditto for atheists or whomever.
He is just being a bigoted ass.