I think I'll start with the American English language and the fact that language is not fixed. Words and usages change constantly. Go to grandma's house and look at her dictionary (I know mine has one from the 1940's or 1950's, and the differences are notable). Look at Chaucer and Shakespeare, and you'll find them very different than our modern language.
However, words do mean things. If two men or two women want to make a lifetime commitment, they are entitled to the same status as a man and a woman making that same commitment, including having the same word used to describe it. I agree it's a total case of semantics, and to use a different term denies equal treatment, even if everything is coded identically. Brown vs. Board of Education stated it with segregation of schools, and I believe the premise holds with the institution of marriage as well. Separate is not equal.
I do not know the Canadian Constitution, so I am limited in what I can say about it. However, both of governments are essentially Republican forms, not Democracies, and the Constitutions were put in place to protect the rights of the minority no matter what any majority may wish. However, I do agree that the Catholic school should have a right to enforce its doctrines, as part of a religious entity. I am assuming the Canadian constitution has a similar separation of church and state built into it in that statement. I agree with free exercise of religion, and that government should stay out of it. However, I also believe they should stay out of regulating marriage by the gender of the participants.
I do believe that it should be marriage or nothing as a legal status, which also means to eliminate common-law marriages still in the books in some states. You make a full commitment and give it the proper name of marriage, or you're not given a committed legal status. Playing the semantics game with "Union" or "Partner" or whatever separates out classes, which again, is not equal.
I agree, Tony, you're not bigoted for not agreeing with the way others live their lives (though "lifestyle choice" =
, as being gay is not a choice, and there is not a single "gay lifestyle"). You're only bigoted if that extends to saying that others don't have the right or believe they cannot live/be that way.
Prostitution is enforced without waiting for the actual sexual act to occur. The illegal act is really the solicitation of money promising a sexual act in return. You're not in the bedroom yet, and can be considered business/commerce regulation, not sexual regulation.
That said, government was never given the Constitutional authority to govern morality (which is relative in any case). There is nothing wrong with marketing a community to a particular demographic, but there it against the freedoms of this country to legislate the community to do so. People have the right to believe and feel as they wish, but they do not have a right to create legislation to exclude based on those feelings and beliefs. Eliminate vaginal sex, and you'd be putting straight and gay couples on equal terms (though I do not advocate any sort of chastity policing or believe it is constitutional to create such standards of conduct as a residential requirement.)
I truly hope that you are not teaching your children that homosexuality is not normal. That would be teaching bigotry. I believe that being sexually attracted to, and engaging in sex with women is normal for a heterosexual male or lesbian female. It is normal for a gay male or heterosexual female to be sexually attracted to, and engage in sex with men. It is normal for a bisexual person to be sexually attracted to, and enagage in sex with people of both genders. You can still apply whatever standards of love and commitment as being morally correct to you to any of those scenarios.
Let's get artificial government restriction out of our society once and for all.
