Politically, the hottest of potatoes
Canada's legislatures keep ducking the question of homosexual marriages
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN -- Toronto Sun--Jan. 19, 2001
Such intellectual dishonesty in so much media commentary about Sunday's marriage of two homosexual couples by Rev. Brent Hawkes at the Metropolitan Community Church! This because most media commentators already approve of such marriages, which means they're deliberately turning a blind eye to the many legitimate areas of public debate. First, obviously, the drafters of Ontario's Marriage Act never intended it to allow gay or lesbian marriages.
Even proponents of using this law, which they argue allows an ancient Christian church practice known as the "banns" to permit homosexual marriages, admit they've found a "loophole" in the act since, through a clear oversight, it doesn't specify that the people about to marry must be of the opposite sex. Obviously, proponents of homosexual unions want to get this issue into the courts once the province refuses to recognize the marriages, since judges have been far more sympathetic to the extension of homosexual rights than politicians, often reading into our laws meanings and words that simply weren't intended when the law was passed. Meanwhile, our Parliament and legislatures have been shamefully reluctant to address these issues, which deeply divide Canadians.
Indeed, gay activists now trying to turn this latest battle into an ideological war with the Ontario government - because Consumer Affairs Minister Bob Runciman has rightly said the province will not recognize these marriages since they clearly violate the intent of federal law - would be better advised to take their complaints to the Liberals in Ottawa. That's where, last year, the Liberal-controlled federal Parliament, when it passed the "Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act," specifically included in the preamble that, when it came to the definition of marriage: "For greater certainty, the amendments made by this act do not affect the meaning of the word 'marriage,' that is, the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of others." However, whatever our laws may say right now, and whatever lip-service governments may pay to marriage being a union between a man and a woman, it's obvious that homosexual marriages are eventually going to be fully recognized by our activist judiciary while governments stand idly by. In this, both institutions serve us badly. Our courts should not be twisting our existing laws into saying things legislatures clearly did not intend. And the proper place for these debates today is in the very legislatures that are ducking them.
The pro-gay media ask of Canadians who oppose gay marriages such simplistic, loaded questions as "how does recognizing them take away from the rights of heterosexuals?" their contempt for any sincere answer always at the ready.
That doesn't change the fact that traditionally, and wisely, our society encouraged heterosexual marriage because it was the best way to ensure stable families in which (as research has shown) children have the best chance to thrive.
Further, until very recently, societal norms of marriage were so bound up in religious prohibitions against homosexual unions, that it's hardly surprising many people retain these views and see these marriages as moral abominations.
Finally, if you so turn the traditional definition of marriage on its head that it no longer means the union of a man and woman, you are clearly undermining its value to many who entered marriage believing that's what it was and should be. It's also a red herring, as the media and gay activists often do, to argue that homosexual marriages are a "human" or a "civil" right. Nonsense. Even at the height of its politically correct idiocy, Ontario's late and unlamented NDP government did not include homosexuals as a "disadvantaged group" in its employment equity law as it applied to minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled. Even it recognized a distinction between those groups and homosexuals. That said, attitudes toward homosexual marriages are liberalizing. Most Canadians now approve of them. When Ipsos-Reid (then Angus Reid ) asked in 1999: "Do you think homosexual couples who wish to marry should or should not qualify for legal recognition of the marriage?" both nationally and in Ontario 53% of those polled were in favour, 44% opposed.
The irony, then, is that our legislatures could deal with this issue openly and honestly, by passing laws recognizing these unions. Those of us who have moral qualms about this will obviously accept the democratic passage of such laws, now backed, as they are, by the majority. But bringing such laws in through the back door of the courts is divisive and wrong, no matter how much the liberal media obfuscate and applaud. |
