On doing one's job

That didn't take long: a Saskatchewan marriage commissioner is whining to the press about same-sex marriage, with support from a Con MP:

After receiving a letter last November from Justice Minister Frank Quennell notifying all provincial marriage commissioners they were obligated to follow the law and perform same sex marriages, Nichols stated publicly in a January Leader-Post story that he would neither perform same-sex marriages nor give up his licence for not performing the ceremonies.

"It's my personal and religious belief that it is not right," Nichols said last January. "My definition of marriage is opposite -- male and female -- not two males and females. That's why I oppose it."...

Obviously, Nichols' stance is completely untenable. As a provincially-licensed marriage commissioner, he has to follow provincial requirements, and can't redefine marriage just to suit his own prejudices.

But I'm not sure Nichols' position is anywhere near as contemptible as Vellacott's:

In the first release Tuesday, Vellacott said Quennell's insistence that marriage commissioners have to resign for refusing to perform same-sex marriages "violates the spirit and letter of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms." The MP added that, like bilingual services, the province should find marriage commissioners "willing to perform this function" instead of firing them.

In a second press release Wednesday, Vellacott named the "two homosexuals that issued the complaint," but the MP said he did not see anything wrong with doing this. This is a public issue and marriage should be viewed as a public event, Vellacott said.

On a general level, this sort of stand leaves Vellacott personally open to blame if (as may be all too predictable) the complainants end up being targeted by anti-gay activists. See Klein, Ralph.

More particularly, Vellacott's position is so obviously flawed I have difficulty believing that a sitting MP would willingly take credit for the argument.

First, the bilingualism analogy is comically off base - even leaving aside the obvious differences between learned languages and innate sexual orientation. Show me a civil servant capable of speaking both English and French, but who refuses to provide services in one language based solely on personal preference, and I'll show you a person who isn't employed by the government for long.

Second, Vellacott oddly redefines marriage as a "public event". Whatever happened to the sanctity of the family? Or is that only for families that Vellacott approves of? And in any event, if marriage is a public event, doesn't the public have all the stronger interest in making sure that its commissioners operate under the public definition of marriage?

In sum: Any person who wants to be a marriage commissioner should accept that that means commissioning marriages. And any person wanting to be the next MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin can safely count on being able to reason circles around the incumbent.