A couple of notes
before beginning.
First, this column
will no doubt stun, even disappoint and anger many persons on my list, who will
be sure I have caved-in to the forces of the dark side. I have not. My thoughts
come after long prayerful consideration.
Also, I won't have
used the word "ruined" to describe the current state of heterosexual
marriage, badly damaged would be more like it. As you will see, I think the
traditional value of marriage has been diminished by the way we, as a culture,
have "individualized" marriage. But "ruined" is not a bad
summation by the headline writer. - LG
Let gays wed;
institution already ruined
The
Wed
Page: A14
Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
Column: Lorne Gunter
Source: The
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There are any number of good reasons to oppose gay marriage.
The family, not the individual, is the fundamental building
block of society. By that I mean the natural family, the one that has existed
for tens of thousands of years, in which procreation is possible.
The natural family has been revered by every major religion and
culture since humans gave one-month's notice to the landlords of their caves
and bought little starter tents in Mesopotamia.
Why? Not so gays and lesbians could be excluded from the
mainstream, but to preserve society's core institution and rear the next
generation.
It is in the family we first encounter a hierarchy of needs
beyond our own. It is where we first learn of the existence of a social order,
where we learn to sacrifice for the good of the whole and where children can be
sheltered and guided while they grow.
We tamper with the family at our peril.
But gays and lesbians are hardly the first to tamper with
marriage. Heterosexuals have already largely stripped marriage of its
essentials. As an institution, marriage is already only about as meaningful as
those who enter into it choose to make it for themselves and their spouses.
Liberalizations to the divorce laws and the laws governing
so-called common-law marriage (living together) have already
"individualized" marriage, and thus effectively rendered it
meaningless to anyone who does not take his or her vows seriously.
No longer is it necessary to subordinate one's selfish
nature to the needs of one's spouse and children. Kids cramping your career?
Get them to a day care. Spouse not satisfying you sexually? Ignore that little
voice that tells you, on balance, he/she is worth staying true to, or that
staying together for the good of the kids is noble. That's just quaint, archaic
thinking, completely out of step with modern progressive thinking. Any
relationship magazine worth its $5.95 cover price will assure you your
fulfillment comes first. Have an affair. Ditch your dreary spouse.
That's the key to happiness.
We don't have to find happiness through service to our
families anymore. How old-fashioned. Now we all know that our families will be
happiest only when we have first achieved individual happiness.
Sure, not everyone has such a jaded, self-centred attitude
toward marriage. But hundreds of thousands, even millions, of heterosexuals do.
At present, nearly half of children will reach adulthood in a home without both
their birth parents. That can't be the fault of gays; Canada does not yet
permit gay marriage.
The best reason to oppose gay marriage -- the threat it
poses to society's essential institution -- is, in all honesty, the best reason
also to lament equally the state of marriage as it has devolved under
heterosexuals in the past half-century.
Frankly, while the social conservatives' case against gay
marriage is a forceful one, in the end I find it hollow. To be sure, it is
strongly rooted in theology and in an honest understanding of the social
consequences of marriage breakdown.
By comparison, the argument for gay marriage seems wilfully
blind to the downside.
But too many social conservatives seem possessed of an
idealized view of heterosexual marriage, rather than a real-world view.
Marriage has already been so diminished by straights, it's hard to see how much
more damage gays could do to it.
I know this is more of an argument for re-strengthening
heterosexual marriage than for permitting gay marriage. But given that the
former isn't going to happen -- liberal politicians, crusading judges and
feminist legal bureaucrats will never permit it -- I see no
compelling reason not to extend the current, situational,
only-what-you-make-of-it version of marriage to gays and lesbians.
Saying that, I am not naive. I know that the moment civil
gay marriages are permitted, gay activists will begin pushing the courts and human
rights commissions to force churches to accept gay marriage, too.
Politicians advocating for gay marriage, such as Liberal
leadership candidates Paul Martin and John Manley, insist no change to federal
marriage laws will compel churches that oppose gay marriages to perform them.
But politicians no longer make the social laws in Canada;
judges and rights panels do. Courts and human rights commissions have already
overridden federal and provincial laws to force Christian colleges to hire gay
lab instructors, Christian printers to print gay material and to declare the
Bible anti-gay, hate literature.
If not immediately, then sometime soon after gay marriage is
sanctioned, some judge somewhere in Canada will rule that gay rights trump
freedom of religion. A Catholic priest or Baptist pastor will then be ordered
to marry two gays or lesbians over his or her theological objections.
And the Supreme Court will eventually back up such a lower
court ruling. The Charter contains no gay rights. Indeed, Parliament seven
times turned down including such rights in the Charter while drafting it in
1981. The Supremes manufactured them anyway.
No promise a Canadian politician makes to limit aggressive
new rights and preserve traditions, is worth the breath it takes to utter it.
Still, gays and lesbians should be permitted to marry, and
churches that object should begin fighting now against the coming moves to
compel their acceptance.
Perhaps reason will triumph again, one day.