The Finnish parliament discusses gender neutral marriage (again)

[SCarpelan]

So, the preparations for the Finnish gender neutral marriage law that passed a while ago have been done and the law will come into effect next March. The law was based on a citizen motion - a while ago the Parliament was put under an obligation to process any citizen motion that has enough signatures. Processing naturally doesn’t mean that the Parliament has to support it. People fighting against the law gathered signatures for a citizen motion of their own for a law that would repeal the new law and this motion was now discussed in the Parliament. There is a twitter account that summarises the arguments supporting the motion for repealing the law into handy memes.

Apparently the discussion wasn’t just about the marriage law. It seems the representatives also discussed the need for a new ”translaw” to repeal the current law that recognizes transsexuals' transitions only after they are sterilized which is grossly against their human rights. The representatives fighting to repeal the new marriage law are naturally not pleased with the prospect of not violating the human rights of the transpeople anymore either. Some of these comments are from when these people had the floor and some are responses to the parliamentarians supporting the basic human rights for everyone.

Behold the intellectual shine of the Finnish Parliament's conservative members:

Gateway to child marriages between siblings.

Human dignity is about who do we give human dignity.

You can’t speak for all gays so let’s forget the whole thing.

This law would discriminate against the gays who don’t want to marry.

As a doctor: if this discussion causes ”anxiety” it must be because of the mental health problems typical to the minorities.

The western culture will collapse

The western civilization will collapse.

Even equality must not be taken too far.

God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve

I was thinking that this is just like if no-one could say ”Volvo”.

Judeo-Christian tradition - common human thinking.

Apparently our future is a gender anarchy.

Gender is a social construct defined by the majority

Translaw would collapse the gender system.

Against the common sense.

We have a whole law for a small minority.

You could respect others. Is this just a dream in Finland?

You must change the law about citizen motions if this insults you so much.

So that this thing wouldn’t go into a chaos which nobody can take responsibility of anymore.

Do you want to take away our right to our opinion?

You can’t change the definition of a word. It has been already defined.

As a member of the Evangelical Lutheran church I demand that the Parliament fires the priests who act against the Bible.

Good luck suggesting a law that would allow you to do that.

It was quite a good speech but it was a bit accusatory.

Is there a god in this room? I thought so.

The anthropologists have found only one society in the world that has a different concept of marriage from the Western one.

A child’s human right to a father and a mother.

Actually, it’s just a 50-50 gender quota.

Changing the concept of marriage is not the last stop for the train.

Edit: fixed a couple of errors.

[dpareja]

Every day I look up at the sky in my country where we've had same-sex marriage for eleven years, and every day I wonder how conservatives can't help but be astonished by the fact that it hasn't fallen.

[Askold]

Repealing the law ain't gonna be easy. EU and UN have this thing where they don't like it if specific groups of people are stripped of equal rights. Having at one point decided to expand the right of marriage to same-sex couples means that now taking them away without EXTREMELY good justification is a impossible.

[SCarpelan]

The main benefit from this for the conservatives is that they get the opportunity to show their voters how they stand up against the "homosation"* of the society and improve their chances to get re-elected.

* a translation of "homosaatio", an invented term some of them use

Edit: Ha! It seems the opponents of the gender neutral marriage are in a catch 22:

Repealing the law ain't gonna be easy. EU and UN have this thing where they don't like it if specific groups of people are stripped of equal rights. Having at one point decided to expand the right of marriage to same-sex couples means that now taking them away without EXTREMELY good justification is a impossible.

This can be circumvented by arguing that the law has not yet taken effect and as such no rights are really denied. This on the other hand leads into the catch 22: a citizen motion can only be used to change an existing law and this interpretation would lead to the motion not being a valid one.

On the other hand, the current Parliament has already shown they are prepared to ignore even constitutional rights so I wouldn't count on them not circumventing this rule somehow.

[Askold]

On the other hand, the current Parliament has already shown they are prepared to ignore even constitutional rights so I wouldn't count on them not circumventing this rule somehow.

For the foreigners: This bit is not a joke. 12.8.2016 the president gave the final approval to a law that made it so that people are no longer treated equally by Finnish laws. At first this only concerns asylum seekers (Limiting them to shorter time to make appeals and limiting their right to legal help. These are supposed to help reduce the amount of people who are given asylum.) but as the Finnish constitution clearly states that the laws must be equal and everyone must get the same treatment, regardless of gender, age or ethnicity this law is now a precedent to making other laws that violate our constitution. Slippery slope argument, I know, but the fact remains that people are only equal when everyone is equal and in Finland this is no longer the case.