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Churches dismayed as Canadian province legalizes same-sex marriages
2003-139C
6/13/2003
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[Episcopal News Service]
Several same-sex couples rushed to apply for marriage licenses -- and several church organizations were just as swift to respond--after a court ruling in the Canadian province of Ontario relaxed the definition of marriage, allowing gays to legally marry.
In a unanimous decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the existing definition of marriage, which refers to the union of one man and one woman, violated the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Canadian constitution. The court instead defined the couple getting married as 'two persons.'
'Exclusion perpetuates the view that same-sex relationships are less worthy of recognition than opposite sex relationships,' the court said in its ruling. 'In doing so, it offends the dignity of persons in same-sex relationships.'
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, an association of evangelical Christians, expressed concern that the new definition of marriage could lead to 'increasing discrimination against religious communities that cannot accept the legitimacy of same-sex marriage.' In a prepared statement, the fellowship also pointed out that marriage 'has strong religious roots, with over 90 per cent of marriages in Ontario being solemnized by clergy.'
The evangelical fellowship is a member of the Interfaith Coalition on Marriage and the Family, which had intervened at the court hearings to argue that across all religions and cultures, marriage was understood as a union between a man and a woman. The interfaith coalition includes Roman Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs as well as evangelical Protestants.
The Ontario court ruled in the case of seven couples, ordering the provincial government to register the marriages. In Canada, the federal government is responsible for the definition of marriage, and the provinces make them official, including overseeing marriage registration.
Following the court decision in Ontario, the federal justice minister, Martin Cauchon, said: 'We really need a national solution.' Such an 'important social issue,' he said, should be dealt with by parliament, not left up to the courts.
In 1999, members of the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the parliament, had voted 216 to 55 to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage.
Monsignor Peter Schonenbach, general secretary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the Ontario court's reasoning 'unconvincing and disappointing' and urged Cauchon to appeal the decision. 'Marriage as a public commitment between a man and a woman has profound cultural, religious and social significance,' he said in a letter to the justice minister. He said the state had 'a fundamental interest' in the institution.
On the other side of the issue, Canada's biggest Protestant church, the United Church of Canada, has resolved to advocate 'the civil recognition of same-sex partnerships.' In 2000 the denomination affirmed 'that human sexual orientations, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are from God and part of the marvelous diversity of creation.'
Marriage between same-sex couples has been legal in the Netherlands since 2001 and in Belgium since earlier this year.
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