Vancouver-Burnaby Temple Report
June 2010
Dear sisters and brothers,
The high point of the month has to be the baby blessing that Cameron and Sam performed for the lovely Teagan at the beginning of June. A lovely little baby surrounding by an adoring and supportive family and friends, in the lush and fertile backyard garden on a sunny afternoon – what could be nicer that to join together and celebrate her life, and to ask the Gods and spirits of nature to support her and her family through her childhood? Well, what was nicer for Sam was that he had performed the parents’ wedding four years before and so there was a deep sense of rightness, of the whole cycle of life here – with the great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, the lovely child. We were pleased to drink a toast in wine made from the plums grown on the tree next to the space where we blessed Teagan, as well.
A low point, just a few days before, was discovering that the divorce of one of the two parties in a wedding that had been in the works for a year had not been finalized. So, a bit more than a month before the date, Sam had to withdraw as the officiant. He is forbidden, as a legally licensed Priest, from performing what looks like a wedding (even a symbolic non-legally binding handfasting) under penalty of a criminal conviction (section 294 of the Criminal Code of Canada). The couple have found another person to perform the handfasting but this was very disappointing and embarrassing.
After the Board of the CWABC approved a policy around polygamous and polyandrous marriages, Sam swore an affidavit that will be introduced as supporting evidence in the court case challenging the law against polygamy (section 293 of the Criminal Code). This important court case will test whether this law is a reasonable limit on the religious freedoms guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was originally prompted by the situation of the polygamous Mormon church, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, and the aborted prosecution of two leaders of factions of that church on polygamy charges, but it also concerns Muslims, whose religion permits polygamy, and practitioners of many traditional religions as well.
We make a distinction between polygamy, in which one man has several wives but women cannot have several wives or husbands, and polyamoury, in which several adults of whatever assortment of genders are all romantically involved with one another. The first is Patriarchal, based on male dominance, and the second is egalitarian, with all equal parties. The first does not fit with our theology, the second does.
It will be November before the first stage of this case comes to trial in the BC Supreme Court, after which it will very likely go through the BC Court of Appeals and to the Supreme Court of Canada for final decision. In all likelihood, it will be a minimum of three years before the question is resolved.
Another unfortunate note this month was that due to an accident at work (Sam slipped on some wet grass and threw out his back) the May Full Moon Open Circle was cancelled. However the Mead making workshop two days later was a success and the mead should be ready to taste, if all goes well, by May of 2011. Other workshops on reiki and on tool-making as well as song and chant sharing are in the works, all to happen in Surrey.
The next Open Circles for the Vancouver-Burnaby Temple will be the 25th of June and 23rd of July, both at Metrotown Mall’s Community Meeting Room above the Sears store, beginning at 7pm.
Blessed Be
Sam Wagar
Priest, CWABC
