Madam Speaker, I am not quite sure what the question was in all of that.
As I explained in my speech, there are significant protections for religious freedom in Canada. The charter has not been proven deficient in this area. In fact, it has been proven vigorous in this area. Even the witnesses appearing before the committee could not point to any place where religious organizations or religious officials had been discriminated against on that basis.
One of the greatest examples is that religious organizations like the Catholic church have different standards when it comes to, say, the access to certain jobs by women within that institution. The ordination of women is not contemplated in the Catholic church. Yet no woman has been able to take the Catholic church to court to sue to be ordained in the Catholic church.
When I raised the issue of why that has not happened with one of the legal experts who was called to testify before the committee, one of the legal experts who was not supportive of Bill C-38, he said that it was unlikely that any lawyer would take such a case because the protections available under the law for religious institutions to make that kind of decision based on their beliefs, their theology, their doctrine were so strong that the case would not succeed.
I have every reason to believe that the same is true for the protections guaranteed around religious marriage. It is very different from civil marriage, which is what we are talking about in the bill. I believe those religious protections are there.
The hon. member in his long comment said that the Prime Minister was the one who had forced the debate on Canadians. I disagree with that too. The debate is before us today because gay and lesbian people in this country sought full equality in a key institution of this society, that institution being marriage. It was not brought upon us by politicians, by the Prime Minister or by activist judges. It was brought about by people who care about their full participation in our society and who care about the institution of marriage, and who believe in that institution and respect it fully.