Society must defend traditional wedlock

By MICHAEL COREN

From the Toroto Sun, 6/11/05

"I receive death threats and abuse on a regular basis. My address and phone number have been placed on the Internet by gay militants and people told to harass and assault me. Jokes were made when my father died, insults made about my family.

I have been told by editors and publishers that I will never work as a writer in various places because I defend marriage. But I will not react in kind and I will not surrender. I do, however, want people to know that there is hatred at work.

First, let us deal with the idea that gay marriage has no affect on people who are not gay. We hear the mantra of "why are you threatened?" and "it doesn't concern your marriage."

So very funny. At the fundamental level of basic logic, something does not have to affect me for it to be wrong. I campaign, for example, for the immediate forgiveness of Third World debt. The issue doesn't concern me personally but morally.

Gay marriage, however, does concern marriage itself and the greater society. It's legal in Holland and Belgium but virtually so in Scandinavia. And in Scandinavia marriage has become so shamed because of this that heterosexual people are abandoning the institution.

In Norway, 80% of first-born babies are born out of wedlock. Even those who campaigned for gay marriage in this region are rethinking their position.

Marriage also affects children and is, please, a child-centred institution. Every informed and intelligent expert, every good parent knows that children need the example of a male and female role model. Indeed, it is sexist to assume otherwise. Single-parent families do exist, of course, and are often admirable. But we do not aspire to them.

The statistics are overwhelming. Children from stable, two-parent families do better, are happier, than any other children.

Yet for the first time in human history we are purposefully affirming and creating families where there is no father or no mother, no man or woman as role model or example or parent. Yes, many mother-father families go wrong, but this is not the point. With same-sex marriage we are aggressively trying to limit the chance of children for the sake of a modernist fad.

This is not about equality. Homosexuals already have the rights of common-law spouses. They also have, and should have, equality in housing, employment, inheritance. Some would argue that in certain cases they have more rights than others -- the right, for example, for some to parade naked in the middle of Toronto on Gay Pride Day and not be arrested.

We are told that gay marriage will not affect those who oppose it. Untrue. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Calgary, who has stood firm against gay marriage, has already been contacted by revenue officials and warned.

A teacher in Vancouver, Chris Kempling, has been suspended from his job because he wrote a letter to a newspaper criticizing homosexuality. Civil servants in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have been advised to resign if they oppose gay marriage. The Knights of Columbus have been taken to a human rights tribunal because they refused to rent their hall to a lesbian wedding, even though they offered to pay for the invitations and renting of another hall. (The Knights of Columbus, by the way, use their money to feed the hungry and help the poor and mentally ill.)

Let us open the door on this debate and allow free expression. We who support genuine marriage and genuine family have a great deal to say -- and are tired of being silenced."