The defence of marriage issue: my take

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So a Hospital takes government money, should a Catholic Doctor be told they either have to perfom abortions or be fired when abortion is clearly against their religious beliefs?

You answer my question first. Can I run a state-funded adoption service that discriminates on the basis of race and gives children over to the care of polygamists?

Why should a Roman Catholic physician be in any different position than a Roman Catholic marriage commissioner or a Roman Catholic Judge?

I said it before, and I will repeat it: When you deliver a public service, you check your conscience at the door. If your conscience does not permit you to perform the public service, then you are perfectly free to resign and seek employment in a private environment where you are not under such an obligation.

(Incidentally, most physicians, at least in Canada, are independent contractors who are free to decide which services they will and will not perform. There are very few who are actually employees of hospitals.)

Polygamy is illegal, and hate to break it to you but state-funded adoptions services can and often do discriminate on the basis of race.
Example: Only blacks can raise black babies, or latinos raise latino babies.



I never said they should and you inadvertently torpedoed your own argument.

A Judge that is a Roman Catholic (or any other faith), actually has the right to pass a case to another Judge if they feel they can't be impartial on a case, and they don't lose their job over it.

This Catholic run adoption service did not say the homosexual couples couldn't adopt kids, just they weren't going to violate their beliefs. They instead gave those couples the contact information of other adoption services that would be more than willing to help them through the adoption process. We aren't talking a situation where they were using foul language, or anything else. It was just a matter of conscience that in my view is perfectly reasonable.



It is an attitude like that which is why we have so many corrupt public officials, because they check their conscience at the door.



Gee, I wonder why...

Probably because they don't have protection under the 1st Amendment like we do in the States.

You are avoiding the question, which was whether you support such discrimination. And why do you support polygamy being illegal? Are you saying people should be denied legal rights just because they're Mormon or Sunni?

You're also factually wrong on racial discrimination in adoption services. I personally know several people raising foster children of a different race. In fact, four of my cousins are black.

You are, not unusually, incorrect.

The only circumstances in which judges may recuse themselves on their own initiative are circumstances in which a judge has an interest in the matter (for example, if the judge has previously acted as a lawyer for one of the parties). Conflict of interest rules are often the subject of legislation and apply to many professions.

In circumstances of a reasonable apprehension of bias, it is the parties that are in control. A party having a reasonable apprehension of bias on the part of the judge can raise the matter and ask the judge (or the chief justice) for a recusal. A judge may also present the parties with circumstances that might give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias--but if the parties raise no objection, a judge will generally be compelled to try the matter before the court.



Can a teacher refuse to teach black children and place them in another teacher's class?
Can a hospital refuse to treat Jewish patients and refer them to another hospital?
Can a public defender refuse to represent women accused of crime (and otherwise entitled to services of a public defender) and refer them to other lawyers?

If a Catholic run agency does not like the laws surrounding adoption services, no one is compelling them to take public money and provide that service. They can easily turn their attention to other matters where their conscience will not run afoul of public law.



You mistake personal conscience for the values and ethics of the public service. When I am working in my public service job, my values and ethics are the values and ethics of the Government of Canada. If those values and ethics conflict with my personal conscience, then I have only one option: resignation.

But if I misconduct myself and violate the values and ethics of the public service of Canada, then my employer has the right (and the duty, I suggest) to take disciplinary action against me, which may include termination.



Read the Charter of Rights and Freedoms some time. We have full and ample rights, including the right to freedom of thought, belief and opinion.

Most of us are private contractors because that is how the profession has always operated. The introduction of medicare did not change that.