I read this piece in the Ottawa Citizen this past weekend and found it to be a lot of rhetoric.
There has been a great deal from all sides flying about.
One comment stood out.

“If you are at the public trough, if you are collecting taxpayers’ money, you should be following taxpayers’ laws. And that means adhering to the Charter,” says Kevin Bourassa, who in 2001 married Joe Varnell in one of Canada’s first gay weddings, and is behind www.equalmarriage.ca.

“We have no problem with the Catholic Church or any other faith group promoting bigotry,” he said. “We have a problem with the Canadian government funding that bigotry.”

Several Liberal backbenchers have been pressuring Prime Minister Paul Martin to amend the controversial gay-marriage bill, which is now before the House, to protect the tax status of churches that refuse to perform such marriages.

Under current rules, donations to religious groups are tax-privileged as long as the church refrains from partisan political activity.

There is more you can read here.

I think Kevin Bourassa over estimated the desire for gays to be litigious to churches that decline, given that there will be other churches and options. And given the limited number of gays who wish to marry, Bourassa’s statement could potentiallt rile far more than churches. Synagogues, Buddhist temples, Hindu temples and Muslim mosques would step in on any bigotry challenge because it would be to their advantage to do so.

I also think he is being unfair to fellow gays and lesbians who I believe know their neighbourhoods and who would welcome them. I doubt in planning a ceremony they would head for a religious leader they know will turn them away.
The Supremecy of God is in the Charter, a personal bigotry charge is going to have a tough time going against that among other things.
Groups such as Bourassa’s would be doing a valuable service to his community if when this bill passes, instead of fighting, would provide gays and lesbians lists of churches, leaders etc. that would perform their ceremony.

Challenges would have to face the charter, and probably provincial tribunals. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is correct that amendments need to be made in the bill. Bourassa’s statement will no doubt help in crafting the amendments.

I do not want to see Canada go the way the states have. Gambling expansion is readily approved, homosexual rights struck down in state after state.
Given the backlash in the US I wonder how many gay couples or groups in Cnada would be willing and financially able to take on a religious leader (that didn’t do as they request) and who are just as protected by the charter of rights. TThis goes beyond tax status. Thousands and thousands of volunteers work in this country with no thought of tax return.
Given that many religious organizations don’t discriminate in any way towards gays in meeting needs etc., some of that backlash could conceivably come from other gays. The rest could come from the quiet middle group of Canadians that have benefited from service provided by churches, food banks, social assistance, counselling, day care, children’s programs, addiction treatment housing, hospices and disaster help.

looking back…looking foward has some interesting thoughts on this article.