Coalition defends marriage
As lawyers for two gay couples prepare for a court battle to decide whether the word "marriage" deserves a broader definition, lawyers for an interfaith group are fighting for the definition to stay just as it is: between a man and a woman.
The furor revolves around a ceremony performed in January in which two same-sex couples participated in a union ceremony at Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto that followed the tradition of publishing banns. They claimed that the marriage was legitimate because it meets the traditional procedural requirements of the church and Ontario's marriage laws which allow "any person" to be married.
The Ontario government burst that bubble soon after by refusing to recognize the marriage, prompting the predominantly gay church to sue the Ontario government.
Now the Interfaith Coalition on Marriage, made up of representatives from Canada's Sikh, Muslim, Catholic and evangelical communities, is vowing to go to court to block any legal recognition of gay marriages in Ontario. The court has granted it intervenor status in the case.
Substantial benefits
"Marriage has always been unique and should remain unique in Canadian law and public policy," says Bruce Clemenger of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, adding that marriage through the centuries has been defined as the union of one man and one woman.
The EFC has also contributed to a Law Commission of Canada study paper, arguing that marriage is unique and should retain its distinct status in law (www.efc-canada.com/na/briefs/marr21.htm).
"Given the substantial benefits of marriage to society, why would the government want to dismantle it?" asks Janet Epp Buckingham, EFC's general legal counsel. "Married Canadians would not react positively to the dissolution of marriage or to the government telling them that their marriages are meaningless."
Phil Horgan, vice-president of the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) told the Ottawa Citizen that 94 percent of marriages in Ontario are performed by the clergy, and if the definition of marriage is blurred, "we will begin to lose the respect that goes with the institution."
"Any couple can currently enter into a contractual relationship for their living arrangements," says CCRL president Thomas Langan. "Marriage remains the publicly acknowledged institution of a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman for the purpose of establishing a family."
The Interfaith Coalition is also intervening in British Columbia, where the province is challenging the federal laws preventing same-sex marriages and in Quebec where a gay couple is challenging that province's same-sex marriage prohibition.
"It is frustrating to watch the architects of public policy try to break marriage into its component parts in order to understand it and treat it equally with other relationships that are comparable in certain aspects," said EFC president Gary Walsh.
He adds that if the courts recognized same-sex marriage and compelled clergy to perform the ceremonies, it would constitute a serious violation of religious beliefs guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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