What Gay Marriage is REALLY About
December 7, 2006 · By Shane Edwards
Has society really changed so much that no longer do we even give lip service to best practices in terms of child-rearing?
I start with this statement in light of today’s vote on gay marriage. For myself, and for large numbers of Canadians (who strangely enough, vote more often than those on the other side of the debate, please note legislators), the gay marriage question is not about love. Nobody questions the human capacity for love, whether a pet rock, a man, a woman or a sunset. Marriage has never been about love. I hate to break it to Hallmark and the Wedding industry, but it’s true. Love with marriage has always been a bonus, a side-effect, and often an outcome of marriage. It is only very recently that love has been viewed as a precursor for marriage. Are we going to rebuild a foundational institution of civilization because in just the last 30 years we all got idealistic? Evidently, we have.
Many, including new Liberal leader Stephane Dion, believe redefining gay marriage is an issue of the charter of rights. It mystifies me that the media takes this at face value. Marriage is not in the Charter of Rights. This man, who would be Prime Minister of Canada, does not even know what is and is not in the Charter.
Marriage is not a right. Equal treatment under the law is a right. I am completely supportive of the right of every gay individual to cohabit with others, I am completely supportive of the right of every gay individual to manipulate their own or consenting partners’ sexual organs for pleasure (though frankly I don’t choose to dwell on it). I am completely supportive of government passing legislation that provides support and benefits to people regardless of their sexual orientation, with respect to their mutual support of each other.
Given current law in Canada regarding common-law relationships, I think there is every basis for such rights to be extended to all regardless of gender or bedroom practices.
I think that a brother and sister should be eligible for spousal style benefits, if they live together and are supporting each other. I think of elderly singles (which I have the feeling will become more and more common in coming years) cohabiting without sexual or romantic interest in each other. I think of persons with disabilities and those who have agreed to live with and support them (assuming they are not being paid to do so). This is reasonable, if perhaps fiscally irresponsible, but that is another matter. It is this kind of arrangement for homosexuals that I have no problem supporting.
But the problem is that marriage, at its core, is really about the children. It is about providing a stable environment, an optimal environment for the care and nurturing of children. A man and a woman are necessary to give children an understanding of how the two genders work and think and respond. Genders are not interchangeable, no matter how much some people might wish this was true. To raise a child optimally, they must be loved and nurtured by someone of both genders. It is not optimal to simply have a “friend” of the opposite sex associated with the familial unit. I am not saying it is wrong to raise children in a sub-optimal manner. I am saying it should not be preferred, which is really what marriage is all about. Marriage is a preferred status for raising children. Marriage is supposed to be taken seriously by both the man and the woman because the consequences of a broken marriage or the instability of an absent marriage, or the imbalance of a single-sex marriage will be visited on the next generation.
What if the married couple doesn’t want kids? From a humanist point of view, if you don’t have kids and never plan to, then don’t get married! Why would you want to? What is the point? To tie yourself down to one person? To limit your freedom for what? There is no point in being married, from a humanist perspective, without some reference to offspring.
The way I see this, there are several keys to the whole gay marriage thing. First, the government has no business deciding what is and is not a marriage. If they want to provide legislation to guarantee rights to benefits of civil partnerships (whether gay, straight, sexless, or whatever), that is something that can be dicussed, but not in reference to gay rights. If they want to provide incentives to raise children in optimal environments that limit the service burden of the child throughout their life, then they should provide marriage incentives (and divorce disincentives). However, love has nothing to do with any of those incentives, and one more time, MARRIAGE IS NOT IN THE CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS OF CANADA.
One more example of our elected representatives not dealing with the real issue, and pandering to special interests.
A great post
That was a really good article. Very good.
All of that said – what can we do? The only fight left is to focus on fighting now how they want us to teach our children.
Ideas?
I disagree with you on a few fundamental points, but there’s no arguing about beliefs.
I think the biggest problem with this whole scenario is that the government got into the marriage business, rather than the contracts-regarding-how-to-divide-property-and-benefits business.
The best (and I think the only feasible) solution for social conservatives at this point is to get the government out of marriage altogether and leave it to the churches to decide who is worthy of such a union.
I liked your article and I agree with a lot of what you’ve said. It is shocking that people aren’t calling Stéphane on all his blunders.
Shane, good article. I would like to add that traditional marriage should not be sold short in terms of its benefit to the individuals involved, not just as a place for raising children (as I have ranted in Defend Canada’s blog).
Janet, there may be no arguing about beliefs, but objective data about life expectancies, income, general health, etc., etc. (if anyone takes the time to study it) will bear out what Shane is saying. So while I agree that getting gov’t out of marriage altogether is preferable to what we have now, I think we are doing our society real harm by not supporting an institution upon which our survival depends.
Pardon me for scratching my head in confusion, but unless there has been some huge advance in medical technology, last time I checked gay couples can’t have children on their own. If people are really freaked out by the thought of kids being raised by gay couples, then the argument should be about gay couples adopting children, not about whether gay couples should get married.
And why do gay couples want to get married if the whole process is about children? For the same reason that childless straight couples get married: to pool resources, to support each other in sickness or old age, or because they are committed to each other and love each other. What business is it of the state to deny this option simply because they can’t have children? We don’t forbid post-menopausal women to get married, do we? If gay couples want to get married, why do straight couples care? It doesn’t affect a straight marriage one bit, and if you’re uncomfortable with the thought of two married men “manipulating each other’s sexual organs” – grow up.
Really good article…there are going to be plenty of issues to come where the mainstream is tired of losing their right to not perform same sex marriage, or to not teach something that is so fundamentally opposed to their beliefs.
I recall being a substitute teacher in a class of grade 1-2 and had to read books on same sex couples because it was part of the “family” unit. I felt very uncomfortable, did what I was being paid to do, but didn’t have any time for discussion. I really think this is something that parents should have a say in, not the school boards when setting up a curriculum.
I wondered after whether or not the regular teacher just happened to be sick that day, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with this issue.
Another thing….if same sex couples think that this legislation will give them the same respect from others as traditional marriage does for heterosexual couples, it won’t….people who don’t accept ssm just won’t accept it, not matter wht the legislation says.
When you change the fundamental core of a society’s beliefs, then how could one “not” expect there to be problems galore…
Type your comment here.
The SCOC only ruled on definition of marriage and that 2-Person is a Right and that Gender can not be used to deny access to that Right.
This was never a Gay-Marriage issue, nobody will be forced to prove their Gender or sexual preference , and just wait until Insurance Companies are flooded with large Benefits claims by 2-persons sharing a home and try to deem the friend as a partner .
Or what happens when 4 or 5 adults want the status of married , will the SCOC THEN develope moral values and laugh at those people and deny them the access to marriage.
Jack Layton is right about one thing, the head of the RCMP should be vetted , but Layton should have spoke up when Martin was in control of who gets on the SCOC, RCMP,GG,Crown Corps,ethic commissioner and a few other pay-off jobs in exchange for the envelope of money and Liberal support.
If the RCMP scandal gets linked to matin and Chretien , then the SCOC should be ruled null and void for any Rulings in that past 10 years since the AdScam started about then and was allowed to go on by Martin’s embracing of ignorance.
The supreme court created the right by their practice of reading in rights that were not expressly mentioned in the Charter. — John M Reynolds
Term limits for all judges right from human rights tribunal hacks and the lowliest J.P. right up through to the SCOC.
If the legal community raises a shitfit about it being unconstitutional (which, of course they will) then ram it through with nothwithstanding clause.
Wow, –name removed–those crow recipe comments are so funny. In fact they are even funnier after you’ve posted them 30 times. I’ll give you credit Lyndon you sure like to work a joke until there’s nothing left. (Not that there was much humour there to begin with).
Hey Lyndon, I have ANOTHER crow recipe I’m certain you’d LOVE.
CHOCOLATE CROW
Take one medium sized crow.
Shove it up your ass.
Enjoy!
Trackback from Opine Editorials.
SSM Motion Defeated in Canadian House of Commons.
Reaction in the blogosphere.
Thank you all for the feedback.
Janet, you are right. The ultimate answer is for the government to get out of the marriage business. Frankly I don’t understand why the call hasn’t gone out sooner. It is the one thing that I agree with PE Trudeau on: the government has NO business in the bedrooms of the nation. As long as the government has to decide what is and is not a marriage, they have to rule on sexual behaviour. Ultimately marriage by this act has been reduced to an arrangement based on sexual behaviour – married people have sex. That is the definition now. People get special rights based on mutual permission to touch their privates. This obviously makes no sense though.
What is needed as I mentioned is a complete rethinking of what government is here to do. If they want to support people who have “partnered” for whatever reason, then make a civil union law. If they want to encourage ideal child-rearing conditions, then create some legislation that supports heterosexual marriage specifically (though I would add that something needs to be added to encourage the participants to consider it a LIFETIME commitment, not just something to pass the time until your loins are drawn to someone new).
Eric, you’re a bit naive. It has been commonplace for homosexual couples to pursue children, and not just by adoption. In-Vitro Fertilization, Sperm donation, Surrogate Motherhood are all options that would allow a homosexual couple to reproduce. Look at Dick Cheney’s daughter.
As for the crow-eating comments, what are you saying? Is what I said a lie suddenly because a couple of cowardly leaders refused to allow a real free vote? Is what I said a lie because many MPs who were prepared to abolish SSM completely refused to vote for this watered down “reopening of discussion without actualy changing anything” bill? Frankly, none of this post requires recanting because of the vote of some MPs. What it means, and what my intention was is to redirect the debate to a new theatre: not questioning whether gays should allowed to be married, but questioning what the government’s role is in supporting child-rearing and/or in supporting mutually supporting couples of any nature.
“I liked your article and I agree with a lot of what you’ve said. It is shocking that people aren’t calling Stéphane on all his blunders”
I think the short answer you’re looking for is “he’s a Liberal”…
“Eric, you’re a bit naive. It has been commonplace for homosexual couples to pursue children, and not just by adoption. In-Vitro Fertilization, Sperm donation, Surrogate Motherhood are all options that would allow a homosexual couple to reproduce. Look at Dick Cheney’s daughter.”
Well, you’ve got me there, Shane. But wait a minute – Mary Cheney isn’t married, since gay marriage is not legal in the US (except for the state of Massachussetts) What does gay marriage have to do with gay couples using “other options” to have children? They can do that already WITHOUT being married, and the children of these partnerships are forced by law in the US to grow up in households headed by couples that can’t get married. Is this better for the children? Or are you now advocating that it should be illegal for gay people, married or otherwise, to raise children? If that’s the case, then your point has nothing to do with same sex marriage,and takes the debate to a whole different level.
Ah… you are right. I made the mistake of citing a famous gay person in another country whose laws are not similar to ours with respect to gay marriage. I should have cited a more appropriate example of a gay couple who is married – if not in Canada then in another country that permits it. I apologize.
Just because people are capable of having children without being married does not negate my point. You twisted my argument to create a straw man. I am not and have not advocated for banning all unmarried people from having children. What I am saying is that if the reason for the government ‘s involvement in the marriage question is to encourage the optimal raising of children at the smallest societal expense, then fine, do that. But then is this is true, then come up with a new word for what people want who want to be united in some kind of legal partnership that has nothing to do with kids. It is patently stupid to provide the benefits set aside to encourage the optimal childraising situation to individuals whose relationship does not align with those conditions.
Now, if it is not the government’s desire to have the next generation of society raised at the least expense of the government, it suddenly explains a whole lot. Maybe this is the exact difference between the liberal and the conservative political view. The conservative one (or true conservative I should say) desires to create a government that is least invasive into people’s lives while at the same time encouraging and supporting the society both as it exists and as it will exist in the future. The liberal view desires to create an optimal society by encouraging societal change in directions of the elite’s choosing, at any expense. If the people do not willingly supply the funds to accopmlish the aims of this “just society” then the funds must be taken by taxes.
[...] What an odd question. It is the question that I was led to when discussing my previous post about Gay Marriage with a Catholic friend of mine. Our subjects wandered over into the area of what freedom of thought and assembly really means. The freedom we enjoy that the government controls is freedom under the law. That means, when a person breaks the law, they are treated equally under the law – that nothing about who they are prejudices the question of what they did, and the just punishment for that action. [...]
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