A rchive Date
[ 21-08-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/richardson.html
Role of sex key in marriage deliberations
By MARK RICHARDSON - For the London Free Press
August 21, 2002
When it comes to sex, there is no doubt we've come a long way, baby. Where we are headed, however, is another question.
I was at the University of Western Ontario's Alumni Hall in 1988 when the General Council of the United Church of Canada voted in favour of ordaining homosexuals. To be more exact, the church voted in favour of a resolution stating sexual orientation was not a bar to ordination. The distinction is important, because many who voted in favour were saying "yes" (as I would have, had I been a delegate) in spite of homosexuality. Not many were saying "yes" to homosexuality itself.
How times have changed. If federal cabinet ministers Allan Rock and Bill Graham, for example, have their way, homosexuals will no longer just be performing marriage ceremonies, they will be the ones getting married.
A couple of weeks ago, the federal government referred the matter of same-sex marriage to a parliamentary committee and decided to appeal an Ontario Superior Court ruling that calls the traditional definition of marriage discriminatory.
Already the guns have started firing. In a recent Globe and Mail piece, columnist Rick Salutin referred to "a vocal, sanctimonious, scared pantsless minority that is passionately opposed (to gay marriage) but which "will lose, sooner or a bit later."
Free Press columnist Herman Goodden confessed in his Aug. 12 column how his "latest batch of mail (from traditionalists opposed to gay marriage) makes charges like I've never received before, much of it too vulgar to be cited. . . ."
Where do I stand? With trousers securely fastened and promising not to send vulgar mail, let me come out of the closet: I think God loves homosexuals as much as he does heterosexuals, but gay marriage is a bad idea.
Fidelity is a good thing. If I had to choose between supporting homosexual commitment and sexual promiscuity, give me gay marriage every time. Writer Timothy Findley's relationship with longtime partner Bill Whitehead, for example, was in many ways laudable.
But not, I am afraid, in the most important way.
In 1967, Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau made his famous comment about there being no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. Hear, hear, say I and most Canadians. Again, however, we can agree with that sentiment for very different reasons.
Some agree because, to them, individual rights are king. If I want to explore my sexual individuality with other consenting adults, they say, who is the state to prevent me?
Others, however, say yes to Trudeau because for them - as for me - God is king and both the state and the individual only find their proper place by serving his purpose. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, said we have "subordinate sovereignty," a freedom which fulfils itself only when obedient.
I don't know how many people get married in order to have children. It could well be for most couples kids are a byproduct, not a purpose. Yet, the first thing the Bible says about God is he is a creator, so I suspect romance is the divine way of getting us in on the act, whether we know it or not.
In any case, the most God-like thing we can do is create new life. But to do so, we mortals need someone else and, however creative homosexuals may be, homosexuality in itself is a denial of the other.
I used to think the solution to this issue was to have a two-tier marriage system. At one level would be a civic ceremony with no reference to God and all kinds of orientations being catered to. At the other tier, of course, would be holy matrimony, a service where churches could set their own rules.
But how long could the distinction last? Before long, both sides would be name calling because both would say - as they are saying now - God and sex are inextricably linked.
One side, however, would say sex has a purpose.
Mark Richardson is a London freelance writer. His column appears Wednesdays Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com
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