What is the driving force?

Catholic New Times, Jan 30, 2005 by Jim Ternier, Marie-Louise Ternier-Gomeres

It is still not clear to us what the exact driving force is behind the attempt to re-define, marriage in order to include same-sex couples. Is it to satisfy the legal rights of a minority group to tax benefits? Is it to safeguard the protection of children, the traditional motivation for governments to be in the marriage business? Or is it to satisfy a political lobby and to be "politically correct" in its attempts to enforce the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Short-term thinking is very dangerous, and-we urge the government to take a long hard look at all the implications of a policy change in this debate over same-sex marriage.

We have a friend who retired recently. She is sharing a home with another woman and helping her to raise this woman's adopted child. This relationship is not a sexual one and they have no interest in "getting married." But "married" couples (either heterosexual or homosexual) have certain financial benefits such as tax advantages and death benefits. For these two women to enjoy such benefits, will they have to go through a paper "marriage?" In this case, how can equal treatment be safeguarded? This seems to be a form of discrimination on the basis of sexual activity. It also seems to fly in the face of a previous-federal minister of justice's attempt to "take the government out of the bedrooms of the nations." The current debate has put the government right back in there again!

By contrast, if the federal government was to drop the idea of marriage entirely and go to a system of "registered domestic partnerships," any two adults could then take advantage of this system and there would be no discrimination. Then at least the government would stay away from defining partnerships on the basis of what goes on in the bedroom. At the same time religious institutions would have to give up the registering of marriages for the state.

In many western European countries religious marriage ceremonies may only be performed after the civil marriage has been registered. Religious institutions could then perform any marriages they chose but they would not have legal status.

Getting married would become a strictly religious undertaking, and maybe that is the only way to treat everyone fairly.

Jim Ternier-and Marie-Louise Ternier-Gomeres

Cochin, Sask.