A rchive Date
[ 04-08-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/woodcock.html
I won't dance at their wedding
'Homosexual' and 'marriage' are mutually exclusive terms
By CONNIE WOODCOCK -- Toronto Sun
August 4, 2002
It's always best to tell the truth and the truth is the sight of two men necking still strikes me as at best odd, and at worst unnatural. And no matter how much I hear about the "inevitability" of gay marriage, I cannot accept it. Ditto for gay marriage ceremonies within the church. Ditto gay priests.
There, I've said it. Call me a homophobe. Call me a gay hater or any of the other names tossed so freely at people who don't quite see things according to the gay agenda. You will anyway.
Dinosaur that I am, I still believe a mommy and a daddy in every household and a union that lasts "till death do us part," are the ideal, just as it says in the standard Christian marriage ceremony. I still believe the undermining of marriage is one of the big problems with our society. And I am sick and tired of hearing people like Toronto lawyer Michael Leshner, who with his longtime partner Mike Stark was refused a marriage licence at City Hall recently, tell me I must accept gay marriage or be branded intolerant.
If it's intolerant to believe that "homosexual" and "marriage" are mutually exclusive terms, then I guess I am.
(It was the attempted Stark/Leshner nuptials among others, that led to Ontario's recent three-judge panel ruling that the traditional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman is unconstitutional.)
It's amazing how intolerant those who have recently been treated with intolerance become the instant the opportunity arises, is it not? And so we're told gay marriage is "inevitable." And that we're going to have to go along with it.
We're also told Canadians are more or less evenly split on the issue. According to a recent Pollara survey for the federal Liberals, it's not quite so simple - 48% of Canadians are in favour of extending marriage to gays while 43% are opposed, leaving 9% who don't know. And although it has been reported that young Canadians are overwhelmingly in favour of same-sex marriages, the figure is actually 61% - lots, but not exactly a landslide. Sixty per cent of Canadians over age 65 are against it while 55% age 50-55 were against it and 40% in favour.
It's been said a zillion times before, but it needs to be said again: marriage is and always has been the joining of one man and one woman (or one man and several women in some societies, but let's not even think about that one) to produce children and continue the human race, that being the ultimate purpose of the whole exercise. That's the way it was 1,000 years ago. That's the way it is today.
Homosexual marriage has never, as far as I've ever heard, been the norm anywhere. If it were, we wouldn't be here arguing about it today. We'd be extinct and rabbits would rule the Earth.
Marriage is one of the cornerstones on which our civilization has been built. And we have ample evidence of just how much damage can be done when it's weakened. Just ask the children of divorce and of single-parent families.
Homosexual unions are the norm nowhere in nature. If dogs and cats were homosexual, we'd be taking pet goats and rabbits for walks on leashes.
You can bend nature's laws, but you can't break them. It still takes one man and one woman (in bed or in a petri dish) to produce children. All the Supreme Court judges in the world cannot change that.
That said, though, there's no reason why some kind of civil union cannot be devised that would satisfy everyone. After all, there is only the ceremony at issue here. All the rights and benefits of common-law marriage have already been extended to homosexual couples. So all we're arguing about is marriage itself.
You'd think that as an Anglican, I might be upset about the British Columbia bishop who is going ahead with the blessing of gay unions, over the protests of many churchgoers, but I'm not - so far. They're not performing the marriage ceremony.
Similarly, in Quebec there is now a ceremony called a civil union that has replaced the civil marriage of a man and a woman with "two persons." There, too, the word marriage is not being used. If you want marriage, in Quebec, you now go to a church. Not a bad idea - if we could trust our churches not to start marrying homosexuals.
In the United States, there's been a big brouhaha lately over the fact African and Asian Anglican churches have sent in a number of bishops as missionaries to save Episcopalian souls they believe have gone far astray.
They think we North Americans are the savages who need saving - and sometimes I think they may be right.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
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