Once more FUJI thinks he understands the law better than a collection of lawyers who interpret this aspect the law in the same way. He was doing so well for a while there.
Harper social conservative agenda rears its head - moves against same sex marriage
- Thread starter fuji
- Start date
Not at all. The original Globe and Mail story said there had been a "reversal of policy." Not true. The law was the same and the interpretation of that law was the same. I probably could have been clearer, but my comments were aimed at the Globe story, not Fuji's comments.
I think Aardvark's comment about Canada becoming the Reno of divorce laws is a good one. I'm not at all sure the government's response is a good thing for gays and lesbians outside of Canada. I guess it depends on whether or not they're still married should they move to this country.
Aardvark is correct.
fuji continues to demonstrate his inability to grasp the facts of this matter.
I found this amusing. A couple of years ago, I was at the Canadian Law and Economics meetings. At the conference dinner, it was clear the American to one side of me was not an economist, so I said something like “So, you’re a lawyer” to which he quickly made clear that he was a law professor and did not like being referred to as a “lawyer”. Now, I find out from your post that regular lawyers have similar feelings towards law professors.
For those who can't be bothered to watch the video, here are Cossman's own words:
Folks come to Canada, they get married, and I think the surprise here, the big surprise for couples today, and I think this is what you saw with Dan Savage and his partner talking, I think they know that when they cross the border they're not going to be able to take marriage home with them, and they're going to have to fight that battle themselves down in the US.
But what's a little bit surprising in the turn of events today was the argument that a marriage entered into in Canada isn't going to be recognized as a valid marriage in Canada because of the home jurisdiction. Now that's absolutely accurate in terms of the technical rules of private international law. It's absolutely technically right, but it just doesn't sound right, it doesn't seem right, in terms of basic equality principles, and it just sounds more than a little bit paradoxical to say hey come get married here--they're not even saying come get married, we'll let you say I do, we'll let you get married, we'll give you the certificate, and then we'll say oh just kidding that certificate isn't even valid for a legal marriage. It seems more than a little paradoxical if not arguably a little hypocritical.
But at the same time the government isn't making this up, they are relying on some--if a little bit arcane--rules of private international law. So I think what's going to happen now is the courts are going to have to figure out a way of can they shift those rules in some way, can they bring equality principles to bear on them, what can they do about that?
The government didn't have to be making the argument that they're making. They didn't have to make the argument in this case. They could defend their residency requirement in the divorce law without making the argument that these marriages aren't valid. They don't have to make that argument. If they insist on making that argument it's then up to the courts to decide what the rule is going to be in the case, whether the court is going to follow that rather old technical private international law rule, or come up with some interesting, more equality consistent way of interpreting that law.
Folks come to Canada, they get married, and I think the surprise here, the big surprise for couples today, and I think this is what you saw with Dan Savage and his partner talking, I think they know that when they cross the border they're not going to be able to take marriage home with them, and they're going to have to fight that battle themselves down in the US.
But what's a little bit surprising in the turn of events today was the argument that a marriage entered into in Canada isn't going to be recognized as a valid marriage in Canada because of the home jurisdiction. Now that's absolutely accurate in terms of the technical rules of private international law. It's absolutely technically right, but it just doesn't sound right, it doesn't seem right, in terms of basic equality principles, and it just sounds more than a little bit paradoxical to say hey come get married here--they're not even saying come get married, we'll let you say I do, we'll let you get married, we'll give you the certificate, and then we'll say oh just kidding that certificate isn't even valid for a legal marriage. It seems more than a little paradoxical if not arguably a little hypocritical.
But at the same time the government isn't making this up, they are relying on some--if a little bit arcane--rules of private international law. So I think what's going to happen now is the courts are going to have to figure out a way of can they shift those rules in some way, can they bring equality principles to bear on them, what can they do about that?
The government didn't have to be making the argument that they're making. They didn't have to make the argument in this case. They could defend their residency requirement in the divorce law without making the argument that these marriages aren't valid. They don't have to make that argument. If they insist on making that argument it's then up to the courts to decide what the rule is going to be in the case, whether the court is going to follow that rather old technical private international law rule, or come up with some interesting, more equality consistent way of interpreting that law.
We (economics professors) call ourselves economists, which is why I was surprised that a law professor would take offence at being called a lawyer. I do think many academic economists do get embarrassed at people judging the economics profession based on the forecasting done by private sector economists. That being said, I have never meet an economics professor who was not willing to call himself an economist, without the professor qualification. I’m sure the private (and government) people, think we are too abstract and ivy tower, but that likely goes for any profession with both academics and nonacademics.
Is it really true that if you put four economist in a room you'd get five opinions?
There is an old story (that may or may not be true) that Truman once said he only wanted one-armed economists so he would stop getting answers that started "on the one-hand ...'
We are getting the thread off topic (although I don't think much new has been added in pages anyway). However, short run macroeconomics forecasts are not what academic economists do and are not taken very seriously by academic economists. The title of the following video is misleading but Levitt is right on in his explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8SRUU2Pt68&feature=related
If you think this was bad, remember that it wasn't so long ago that it took an Act of Parliament to get divorced in Canada. In any case, the higher powers of our Harper Government have now determined the best way out of this mess a couple of over-academic lawyers made when arguing whether the non-resident couple should be exempted from the one-year residency requirement for divorce. Without saying how they'll do it, they have promised that they'll make divorces explicitly available to non-residents, opening the way for Canada to become the new Nevada for quickie same-gender divorce, as well as marriage.
What is truly silly, completely counter-productive and absolutely absurdly human is that every time this topic arises we discuss it in terms of marriage law. As if there ever was a possibility of a mere law stopping people from loving and allying themselves with whomever they wanted to. They'll journey round the globe rather than submit. That stuff is all bureaucratic pettifoggery that amounts to filing paperwork. No one really cares, except we never want to consider The Other.
The only time the state ever really does do useful work in the area is when a couple calls it quits, and now expects—and often needs—the help of the government to sort out the disagreeable mess they made and the property and custody issues attached. We'd be a lot farther ahead if we had better Divorce Education and less marriage law.
What we should be talking about is Eric vs. Lola in Quebec.
What is truly silly, completely counter-productive and absolutely absurdly human is that every time this topic arises we discuss it in terms of marriage law. As if there ever was a possibility of a mere law stopping people from loving and allying themselves with whomever they wanted to. They'll journey round the globe rather than submit. That stuff is all bureaucratic pettifoggery that amounts to filing paperwork. No one really cares, except we never want to consider The Other.
The only time the state ever really does do useful work in the area is when a couple calls it quits, and now expects—and often needs—the help of the government to sort out the disagreeable mess they made and the property and custody issues attached. We'd be a lot farther ahead if we had better Divorce Education and less marriage law.
What we should be talking about is Eric vs. Lola in Quebec.
