The genuine meaning of marriage is lost (Canada's impending gay marriage law)

Oh for the gift of hindsight. One day people will look back to the early years of the 21st-century in Canada and wonder why the desires of a small number of people within, perhaps, 3% of the population, should receive so much publicity and be acted upon with such alacrity by politicians and judges. I refer of course to gay marriage.

Numerous legislatures have voted on this issue in recent years and all, including those governed by the NDP, have rejected it. Which is why activists went to the courts and compliant judges read in sexual orientation into a Charter of Rights that was never intended to include it. So those of us who were opposed to the idea called for a vote. But a free one.

Which is certainly not what will happen when the government prepares a bill on the subject in the extraordinarily short time of two weeks. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he expects his Cabinet to vote for the bill. They and their parliamentary secretaries give the proposed legislation an immediate 70 odd votes. Hardly free.

But the issue goes beyond mere politics to the deeper moral and logical issue of what should and should not be. It has to be stated immediately that if there is any hatred in your heart, you have no right to comment on this issue. But if there is love in you, you have a responsibility to do so. I also have to bemoan the fact that the government could not be so enthusiastic and prompt about issues such as, for example, child poverty, Third World exploitation and the arms trade. Just a thought.

Marriage is a religious institution. It was designed and devised by faith groups, particularly of the Judeo-Christian kind, several thousand years ago. The argument that it is entirely an economic concept invented in early medieval Europe is nothing more than the tendentious fantasy of radical historians who have not done their homework.

That gay people will live together, love together and spend productive and generous lives together is axiomatic. Only a zealot would argue otherwise. They should be, and are, protected by legislation that guarantees them employment, housing, benefits and equality. If abused, they have protection. If insulted, they have recourse. Thank goodness for that.

But when an ancient, important and holy institution is labeled "unconstitutional" by a court and its meaning exploded, we have to take a stand. I have heard people argue that it is of no concern to heterosexuals and will not affect them. Please! As a white man I was not directly harmed by apartheid, but I still realized the absolute wrong of this philosophy and thus opposed it.

If marriage is suddenly fundamentally altered to include people of the same gender, it loses its genuine meaning to the rest of us. We may include in the cat family the earthworm. Does this make worms feline? Of course not. But it destroys the definition of cat.

Marriage was and can only be the union of a man and a woman. The state intervened some time ago but the origin, and I would argue the essence, of marriage is still rooted in faith. And do not, please, tell me about the vital separation of church and state. Our entire legal code, our entire grasp of right and wrong, is based on Judeo-Christian principles. Let us go further. The very notion that there is such a thing as right and wrong is taken and inspired by Judeo-Christianity. Why not steal or kill if we can get away with it, unless there is a deeper imperative directing our conscience.

It has also become fashionable to deride what has been termed the "slippery slope" approach. In brief, what comes next? But this is a poignant and powerful stance. If we genuinely believe that a man can marry a man and a woman a woman, how can we possibly prevent a man from having more than one wife? Especially as many Muslims believe this to be acceptable. They would have legal precedent as well as freedom of religion on their side.

Incest? Supporters of gay marriage claim that it is illegal, so there is no argument. Won't do. Homosexuality was illegal not that long ago. The central argument behind gay marriage is that the only criteria is love. I have no doubt that gay people can be in love. But then so can a brother and a sister. It may be convenient to say that this will never happen, but it is neither logical nor morally consistent.

Care, compassion, respect all round on this one. But also common sense and thought. One more thing. They used to say the world was flat, and those who disagreed were even arrested. Did it make the world flat?

Michael Coren's new book is Mere Christian (Castle Quay). He is a TV host and his Web site is www.michaelcoren.com

FIRST: I disagree with only one point in this author's otherwise excellent piece. The concept of a socially sanctioned union between man and woman goes back farther than biblical times. Modern humans have been on this planet for roughly 200,000 years. As far back as we can trace human culture — many tens of thousands of years prior to the origins of Judaism, let alone Christianity — the core social human unit was man and woman, their children and extended family group.

SECOND: Marriage defined as the socially sanctioned coupling of a man and a woman (in some cultures, a man and several women) evolved as an essential part of human procreation. It was, to put it bluntly, the only way a male could have some guarantee of the paternity of his children.

THIRD: In all cultures, in all periods of human history and prehistory, socially sanctioned couplings — i.e., marriage — pertained ONLY to couplings between males and females.

FOURTH: If we are now to stretch the concept of marriage to include same-sex couplings, it would overturn not 2000 years of human experience, but tens, if not a hundred thousand years' experience or more.

FIFTH: We need to think very, very long, and very, very carefully before we allow the Left to push us in this direction. As sure as the sun rises in the east, once Canada's new law takes effect, American gays will get "married" up there, then come back here to demand "rights."

FROM ANTHROPOLIGICAL SOURCES:

FIRST: At the dawn of the human race, the early female human paid a price for assuming an erect posture. The birth canal became somewhat constricted, while the embryo's head got bigger. These changes forced a reduction in the gestation period and meant that after birth, the infant required parental attention for years longer than a baby chimp [for example]. Therefore early humans formed pair bonds, because the child was more likely to survive if the father was still hanging around to help the mother provide food and protection.

SECOND: From "The Emergence of Biologically Modern Populations in Europe: A Social and Cognitive `Revolution'?" by Paul Mellars, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Great Britain) comes the following exerpt:

The appearance of anatomically modern populations in Europe around 40–45,000 years ago appears to reflect a major population dispersal, which replaced the preceding Neanderthal populations...there is archaeological evidence for a range of dramatic cultural innovations, including the appearance of more complex forms of stone and bone technology, personal ornaments, larger and more highly structured living sites, and remarkably sophisticated representational art and other forms of visual symbolism. There is also evidence for a major increase in human population densities...[and}...several other social transformations, including the appearance of larger residential group sizes, increased separation and specialization of personal roles within these groups, more sharply bounded territorial and demographic groupings, and more complex forms of descent and kinship structures*...[end exerpt].

*Descent and kinship structures are impossible without some means to guarantee to a male that a woman’s offspring are, in fact, his. This means some form of socially sanctioned male-female unions existed deep into prehistory.

I think you misread or misunderstood: I never said marriage as we understand it today existed in prehistory. Only that some form of socially sanctioned male-female union existed. Do such social sanctions go back as far as the dawn of the human race? You are correct in that no hard evidence exists for that very early period.

However, hard evidence does exist for neolithic times, when people were living in settlements and groups larger than the core family/tribal unit. And there is no question at all that socially sanctioned male-female bonds existed in classical times, in societies that pre-date both Judaism and Christianity.

The point is that human societies have formally sanctioned male-female unions for many thousands of years. So our society should think long and hard before changing something so fundamental.

what has already seriously damaged marriage and the family as the basis of society is not the occasional 'odd couple' but the very frequent ~~single mom~~fatherless child.

Both sexes are implicated. And it is the cause of significant damage to society and to the child. Gay marriage will underscore the irrelevance of the contribution of a man to a child and the contribution of a woman to a child, as this is also the agenda of homosexuals.

I just read your very thoughtful response and wanted to thank you for taking the time to post it. I want to respond in a considered and respectful way, but don't have time at this moment. Will take the time later today. But in the meantime, please note two things: First, I posted the article thinking it would stimulate much more debate than it has. Second, my own personal view is not a moralistic or religiously based one, but rather one grounded in nature and many tens of thousands of years of human experience.

MY RESPONSE TO THOSE FREEPERS WHO OPPOSE HJR 56...

First and foremost this is NOT petty... it is critical in this day and age that we RE-AFFIRM our MORAL foundation. I AGREE with those opponents who are concerned that the U.S. Constitution should not have to be this SPECIFIC, ....HOWEVER, our JUSTICE system has failed us miserably... by equating a union of two people of the same sex to MARIAGE....

this is a HUGE step in destroying the MORAL foundation of our laws.

I believe that by NOT passing this ammendment the effect will be exactly what some opponenets fear will occur if we DO pass it......

IMHO, it will encourage leftists to try to put their own crap into our laws using the judiciary, and taking advantage of its failure to ensure decisions are grounded in MORALITY........

This Ammendment will send the message LOUD AND CLEAR to our JUDICIARY that we WANT them to make decisions that are grounded in MORALITY and if they don't know what that is then WE THE PEOPLE will have to explain it to them in the CONSTITUTION!!!

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