Editorial

By Paul Schratz

Not all sins should be crimes, said saints like Augustine and Aquinas, and not all crimes are sins. In the case of marriage, however, governments seem increasingly unable to make up their minds what's a sin and what's a crime.

Just last year, federal and provincial governments maintained marriage was a flexible institution evolving into pretty much anything anyone wanted it to be.

While permitting two men to "marry" each other, however, governments also assured the public that marriage would not be further redefined to allow polygamy.

Why an elastic could be stretched in one direction but not in the other was never clear, but governments did seem to comprehend they'd have more luck pushing Adam and Steve on Canadians than Adam and Steve and Eve.

Suddenly, in the case of the polygamous Bountiful community in British Columbia, the government is in a quandary. Attorney General Wally Oppal is eager to prosecute - just like old times intruding in the bedrooms of the nation, telling people what's an appropriate relationship and deciding what's right and wrong when it comes to marriage.

Well, which is it? Is marriage a changing institution that must keep up with the times - as we were instructed when the "same-sex marriage" debate was taking place? Or is the B.C. government now startled to realize that if it can call a dog a cat, there's really no reason a bird can't be a cat as well?

There is no question that polygamy is illegal as well as morally wrong, but homosexual marriage used to be as well. Why the government's sudden interest in preserving marriage in its present form?

Two men? Fine. Three men and four women? Whatever. Canada's top court is going along with with an Ontario court ruling that an Ontario boy can have three parents: two lesbians and the man who fathered their child. What earthly difference does it make anymore in a land where the census shows more single parents raising children alone, common law relationships jumping by nearly 20 per cent, the number of married couples declining, and a new tourism industry developing around "same-sex marriage" for visitors.

The irony is that amid such a moral swamp the government is scrutinizing Bountiful, a community that has not sought to register its relationships and has asked for no public funding. The government has found no evidence of abuse, any instance of a woman there against her will, or any married girls under the legal age to be married.

Apparently the government realizes marriage must have some structure, despite denying it last year by formalizing same-sex relationships. Governments may have long ago stopped favouring married couples and their children and established "married / living common-law" as a single category on your government forms, but it knows there's an inherent difference.

It's not too late to take a step back to common sense. Maryland's highest court last week upheld a ban on "gay marriage," citing "the State's legitimate interests in fostering procreation and encouraging the traditional family structure." Practically every U.S. court to have addressed the issue has come to the same conclusion.

Marriage either is an institution founded for one man and one woman for the raising of future generations, or it isn't, and politicians need to finally admit they've forgotten why government has a stake in marriage in the first place.

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