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A DECLARATION ON MARRIAGE
Article 1 MARRIAGE
AND THE FAMILY ARE UNIVERSAL
All human beings are born of a mother and begotten by a father.
This is a universal biological reality and the common experience
of all people. The state supports the institution of marriage
because it promotes and protects the father-mother-child relationship
as the only natural means of creating and continuing human
life and society.
Article 2
MARRIAGE MEANS ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN
Marriage in Canada has always been defined as "the union
of one man and one woman," the chief function of which
is to promote the biological unity of sexual opposites as
the basis for family formation. Governments may want to support
other relationships, but these should not be called "marriage,"
or confused with it.
Article 3 MARRIAGE IS CENTRED ON CHILDREN
Marriage is a child-centred, not an adult-centred, institution.
No one has the right to redefine marriage so as intentionally
to impose a fatherless or motherless home on a child as a
matter of state policy.
Article 4 MARRIAGE RESTS ON FOUR CONDITIONS
Marriage is a solid social structure resting on four conditions
concerning number, gender, age, and incest. We are permitted
to marry only one person at a time. They must be someone of
the opposite sex. They must not be below a certain age. They
must not be a close blood relative. Those who satisfy all
these conditions - each of which safeguards the well-being
of children, the family, and society - have a right to marry.
The removal of any of them threatens the stability of the
whole structure.
Article 5 MARRIAGE IS ABOUT MORE THAN EQUALITY
All government policies are intentionally preferential. If
we want welfare or veterans' benefits, or child-support, or
marital benefits, we have to qualify for them. Such policies
are ordinary forms of distributive justice through which,
for its own good, the state discriminates in favour of some
people, and some relationships, and not others. So an absence
of "equality" is not a good argument against such
policies. As same-sex partnerships already receive the same
benefits as marriages, however, something else is at issue:
an attempt to persuade the public that such partnerships are
of the same value to society as marriages. But they can only
be made so by denying the unique contribution of marriage
as a biologically-unitive, child-centred institution.
Article 6 MARRIAGE IS ABOUT MORE THAN LOVE
The fact that two people say they love each other does not,
in itself, justify a right to the benefits conferred by the
state on married couples. The only justification for a state
interest in the privacy of love flows from the connection
between the political fact that the state has a fundamental
concern for its own survival and well-being, the biological
fact that all human beings require someone of the opposite
sex to create life, and the social fact that children have
a natural claim to the love and support of their own mothers
and fathers. Accordingly, the only kind of private love that
is of justifiable public concern is the love that occurs between
two people who qualify for marriage according to the four
conditions in Article 4.
Article 7 MARRIAGE BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE
Marriage is an institution that has arisen from long-held
beliefs and customs of the people that are prior to all states
and all courts, and are essential to the very fabric of society.
Any attempt by unelected officials of the courts or by any
other branch of government to claim ownership of marriage,
to alter it without the support of a significant majority
of the people, or to diminish the father-mother-child relation
in favour of the state-citizen relationship, usurps the natural
rights and freedoms of the people and constitutes a serious
breach of the public trust.
Enshrine Marriage Canada
416-533-5124
www.enshrinemarriage.ca
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