Real Women of Canada - Marriage Between a Man and a Woman

Marriage Between A Man and A Woman

Marriage between a man and a woman is different from all other human relationships.

It is a unique relationship of infinite value to the individuals themselves, who benefit from the integration of the potential and strength generated by their gender differences. It is also of great social value because of its stability, which is necessary for the continuity of the nation.

Other relationships can provide intimacy, economic support, children, (who, because of biological necessity, are propagated outside of a same-sex partnership), but they do not constitute a marriage, because they do not affect the public interest, but only a private lifestyle preference of the individuals.

The public interests which heterosexual marriages provide include:

The Stability of the Relationship

Marriage is the most stable of all relationships. In 1998, Statistics Canada released statistics indicating that 63% of couples living common law, with children, break up within 10 years. This is compared to only 14% of legally married couples with children, who break up within ten years.

Marital fidelity is not expected or even characteristic of same-sex relationships, especially among homosexual men. Even in so-called ‘monogamous” homosexual relationships, sexual fidelity is almost unknown.

2. Children Are Procreated Only Through the Union of One Man and One Women

Mr. Justice La Forest, in the Supreme Court of Canada in the Nesbit and Egan case in 1995, stated:

“[marriage] is the social unit that uniquely has the capacity to procreate children and generally cares for their upbringing, and as such, warrants support by Parliament to meet its needs … This is the only unit in society that expends resources to care for children on a routine and sustained basis …… this is the unit in society that fundamentally anchors other social relationships and other aspects of society. (Page 538)

Legally married couples who struggle and sacrifice to bear and raise children must be given every encouragement to support this unique and priceless contribution to Canada’s future.It is an insult to them and their tremendous effort, to have their unions equated to other relationships such as same-sex, which cannot make the same contribution because of biological impediments.

It is irrelevant whether the couple actually has children -- only that, as a social policy, traditional marriage must be encouraged.

3. Children Thrive Best Within A Committed

Marital Union

In 1996, Statistics Canada released the results of its longitudinal study of 23,000 children, which disclosed that those raised in their biological two-parent family experienced far fewer problems.Children who do not have this advantage are far more likely to experience out-of-wedlock pregnancy, poor school performance, early school dropout and difficulties with the law, etc.

Dual-gender parenting provides the best environment for children to acquire knowledge as to how to relate to persons of their own and the opposite gender, and to understand inter-gender relations on which society is based.

Moreover, one of the most important functions of traditional marriage is to assure the future by providing well-socialized children by passing on social knowledge and skills, which is best achieved by dual-gender parenting.

4. Protection, Security and the Status of Women

Women take the greatest risks and invest the greatest personal effort in maintaining families.Marriage protects them from abuse. According to a Statistics Canada Survey on Violence Against Women, released in November 1993, women living in a common-law relationship are four times more likely to experience violence from their partners than are legally married women.

Further, domestic violence rates, according to studies, are also exceptionally high among same-sex partners.

Traditional Marriage Distinct from All Other Relationships

The characteristic that defines same-sex partners as a group and, as couples, is not belief or biology, but behaviour – a particular kind of erotic behaviour. Sexual and sex-like behaviour is not an inherent personal characteristic such as race or gender, nor is it an exercise of conscience, like religion or speech. Homosexual behaviour is not comparable to race as a basis of marriage, since race is irrelevant to marriage.

If the guiding rule to marriage is behaviour, then there can be no valid or reasoned argument to exclude other sexual relationships, from the definition of “marriage,” such as a brother and a sister, a father and adult daughter, or perhaps even three individuals together as a marriage. In short, if we accept behaviour as the guide, then there can be no meaningful limits to such “marriages,” which can only lead society to social and moral chaos.

International Recognition of Marriages

English, American and European law, with the single exception of the Netherlands, have all confined marriage to a union between a man and a woman. This is also the position taken by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights. In addition, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, all recognize that the legal status of marriage and spousal relationships applies exclusively to married couples.

That is, marriage between a man and a woman has remained, internationally, the greatest constant over thousands of years of recorded history and crosses religious, cultural and ethnic divisions.

If Canada were to recognize other relationships as legal marriages, it would place Canada outside the international norms of the world. This would lead to complications, both internally and externally for Canada, in law, immigration and to society, and in our relationships with other countries.

Mr. Justice Pitfield of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, in upholding the traditional definition of marriage, in October, 2001 stated:

… Other than the desire for public recognition and acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships, there is nothing that should compel the equation of a same-sex relationship to an opposite-sex relationship when the biological reality is that the two relationships can never be the same. That essential distinction will remain no matter how close the similarities are by virtue of social acceptance and legislative action.

… The core distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships is so material in the Canadian context that no means exist by which to equate same-sex relationships to marriage while at the same time preserving the fundamental importance of marriage to the community.

MARRIAGE CAN NEVER BE A PRIVATE LIFESTYLE CHOICE, BUT MUST REMAIN BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN AND BE SINGLED OUT FROM ALL OTHER ADULT RELATIONSHIPS BECAUSE OF ITS UNIQUE SERVICE TO SOCIETY.

Please write to the following, demanding that marriage remain exclusively a union between a man and a woman.

The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien, PC, MP
Prime Minister’s Office
80 Wellington St., 2^nd Floor
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Tel.(613) 992-4211
Fax: (613) 941-6900
E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca

The Honourable Martin Cauchon, PC, MP
Minister of Justice
Justice Building
284 Wellington St.
Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8
Tel:(613) 992-4621
Fax: (613) 990-7255
E-mail: Cauchon.M@parl.gc.ca

Your MP
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A OA6

MARRIAGE BETWEEN A MAN

AND A WOMAN

REAL Women of Canada

(Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life)
is a national women’s organization.
We are a non-partisan non-denominational
pro-family lobby group.

Box 8813
Station T, Ottawa ON K1G 3J1
Tel 613.236.4001
Fax 613.236.7203
Email realwcna@on.aibn.com
Web www.realwomenca.com