A rchive Date
[ 15-06-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/woodcock.html
Gay marriage: An idea whose time has come?
By CONNIE WOODCOCK -- Toronto Sun
June 15, 2003
I'd like to wish Michael Leshner and Michael Stark hearty congratulations on their marriage last week. No, really, I mean it. How can something that gives two people such joy be wrong?
You'll remember they were the first gay couple to tie the knot Tuesday after the Ontario Court of Appeal's ruling that excluding gay couples from marriage is unconstitutional.
May their lives together be long and happy and may they avoid the next rip in Canada's new social fabric, the first gay divorce. (I do wonder what they call themselves: husband and husband? Spouse and spouse? Mr. and Mr. Leshner/Stark? Does Miss Manners provide any clues for this one?)
I guess I'm like a lot of Canadians my age: I'm ambivalent. Half of me says it's a pretty mean-spirited society that, in the 21st century, would deny two faithful, committed people the legal marriage ceremony. This half of me was happy for two lesbians who came to Canada to enjoy our freedoms and escaped persecution in Chile.
Still, the other half of me was raised to believe homosexuality is a sin and is having a hard time watching two people of the same sex kiss.
But same-sex marriage appears to be an idea whose time has come. It's not just the court decisions, to which the people who should be making the law, the federal government, have not replied.
It's the beliefs of the younger generation now in its 20s that is driving it. People like my younger daughter find homosexuality a normal state of being not much different from having red hair or freckles. By the time she's my age, the gay marriage issue will be an historical oddity.
Meanwhile, there are one or two problems. The biggest is the possibility churches could be forced to perform religious ceremonies for gay couples no matter what church doctrine might say and be made to stop speaking against homosexuality in their teachings. The courts say this won't happen, but I'm not so sure.
I would hate to see my own church (Anglican) have to face more court costs to defend itself, having only resolved the residential schools issue just in time to save itself from bankruptcy. Anglicans have been struggling for years to settle the question of gay marriage and it's nowhere near being solved, even though several churches in one British Columbia diocese are offering "blessing" ceremonies.
My other problem is with a bill introduced by the NDP's Svend Robinson. Bill C-250 appears to be a harmless little amendment to the Criminal Code's hate crimes provisions adding sexual orientation to the list of specific groups against which one may not advocate genocide. Right now, the list contains colour, race, religion and ethnic origin.
But that's not all the amendment does. It also would make it a crime to "incite hatred" in a public place against any of these groups. You can't help but wonder if it would become illegal for a minister to preach against homosexuality as a sin, which many, many Canadians believe. The Criminal Code carries a specific exemption for religious beliefs, but many people don't believe it will be effective.
Last week, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed its worries in a letter to Justice Minister Martin Cauchon and asked the government to reaffirm its 1999 declaration, in which it said: "It is necessary, in light of public debate around recent court decisions, to state that marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others and Parliament will take all necessary steps ... to preserve this definition of marriage in Canada."
"Millions of Canadians who have invested a great deal of hope and meaning in marriage, are counting on you," the letter said.
Only a couple of months earlier, the CCCB had told Cauchon that "what troubles us is the possibility that someone who finds the expression of the beliefs of the Catholic Church on the sexual conduct of homosexual persons too blunt or too harsh will invoke the Criminal Code to silence the teaching. We are aware that the supporters of this Bill suggest that this concern is without legal foundation but ... we are not willing to rely on these assurances."
And who can blame them? Some in the gay community have gone to great lengths to get their way (offending enormous numbers of other groups along the way) and I wouldn't expect them to draw the line at using hate laws against religious communities whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or anyone else.
It begins to feel as if, in this new Canadian society, some of us will be more equal than others. And, as every homosexual should certainly know and understand, that isn't right either.
The government should speak up.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
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