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| Ottawa |
From the news today, the Canadian Supreme Court has decided that proposed Federal Government legislation allowing same-sex marriage is constitutional. The government, however, cannot force religious organizations to perform homosexual marriages against their beliefs.
The Liberal government will take the court's decision as advisory and will have a vote in the House of Commons on whether or not to legalize same-sex marriage.
I would have preferred to see the court state the obvious, that marriage traditionally has encompassed a man and a woman, and for good reasons. The union of a man and woman can, if normal health is present, lead to the sexual production of a family. Homosexual marriage cannot lead to the production of a family unit, even if both partners are completely healthy. This is clearly a difference between heterosexual and homosexual unions, and as one critic argued, the latter are really homosensual unions.
I would have hoped that homosexual unions would have been given civil union status with all the same basic rights of heterosexual marriages, with the understanding that there was by nature a fundamental difference. However, many in our society do not want to reason with these issues but, rather put rights ahead of truth. I support homosexual rights because this is a democracy, but as a Christian, and intellectual, reason also tells me that marriage by definition is sexual and can, under normal circumstances, lead to sexual reproduction. I am not saying that a heterosexual couple that marries and cannot have children is not a valid marriage, nor is a marriage invalid where no children are produced by choice. I am stating that generally, with normal health, a heterosexual marriage includes the natural ability to sexually reproduce, and this is impossible normally with homosexual couples, thus there is a clear distinction and I think that this should be legally recognized.
I strongly hope that Christian institutions are, in the future, not in legal trouble because of their rejection of same-sex marriages. I think that Christian organizations need to share the gospel in love with homosexuals, but Christian groups need to keep membership in churches and leadership positions for committed believers who realistically do struggle with sin, but don't openly live lives contrary to Scripture. If the Christian Church, for the most part, keeps its membership clean while still being open to witnessing, then there may be few instances where a member of some Christian group desires to wed someone of the same sex. This would help to avoid the danger of Christian morality and standards being found illegal or unconstitutional by Canadian governments and courts.
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| Duffey Lake, British Columbia |
