Angry in the Great White North has been one of my favorite blogs for some time, as Angry himself is such a level headed and well-thought-out kind of guy.

Without boring you, and making you think that this is a one-trick pony blog, I will once again address the same sex marriage issue.

The legitimacy of a government derives from one thing and one thing only: the power to collect taxes, Democracy, dictatorship, theocracy, oligarchy, kakistocracy, monarchy -- the differences are irrelevant to the question of legitimacy. What matters is that there is one recognized authority that has the power to compel the people living within some defined geographic area to pony up a portion of their wealth, on demand. That power in turn comes from maintaining a monopoly of violence. When that monopoly is employed to generate tax revenue, you have "government".

If the government can no longer collect taxes, or is unwilling or unable to punish those who defy the government's power to levy and collect taxes, the legitimacy of the government is in question. No one is going to care if the government upholds the law on same-sex marriage -- well, not many people, anyway. But everyone is affected by taxes, and if the government is seen to be unable to exercise its power to tax, the government falls.

But our government will not allow that to happen. Power at all costs, after all. Which means they will attempt to employ force (though without a military that will be difficult). Churches will break with the rest of society, the faithful may refuse to pay any taxes at all, and essential services will break down. It sounds insane and far-fetched, but it may come to this.

While I do not want to live in a society that is run wholly by the church (after all, that would turn us into a Christian version of Iran), I am also unwilling to live in a country that does not provide the basic freedom of religion that is so important to democracy. There is nary a democratic country that does not support the tax-exempt status of churches and recognized religions, and if Canada strips that away, it will officially be a communist country. And as we all know, communism doesn't work anywhere but on paper, and it leads to chaos and oppression.

The first lawsuits to challenge the church are coming. Will you stand up for freedom, or lay down for communism?