Should not literacy and sanity tests be imposed on candidates for public office?

[fpb]

An example of what passes for discussion of public issues in Canada:

...Mark Holland, Liberal MP for Ajax-Pickering,... claimed that marriage could be whatever anyone wants it to be because 'cultures change over time.' He said that religions have nothing legitimate to say on the subject because "the religious definition of marriage, the idea of marriage being a religious ceremony, did not come into being until the 16th century." Though Mr. Holland did not specify which culture's history he was revising, he asserted that, "It was in the 14th century that the clergy began to get involved in religious ceremonies performed by the state because the clergy was literate, so we undertook a change then."

I can only say that as a historian, I find it offensive that such a pitiful moron should be able to take part in the governing of a modern state. And if I need to explain to anyone that this is brutish, dim-witted, pathologically incompetent nonsense, then I can only recommend that that person should go back to his/her school and sue them for their complete failure to educate him/her in elementary history.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Of course; you're not Catholic. People are not converted by marriage laws. If you ever come to accept that the Church is the bearer of some serious and important trutns, then it will be time to talk about specific laws.