Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words on Bill C-264. The bill would make two changes in the current Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Act. The first would be to change the title of the act to the marriage capacity act. The second of course would add section 4.1, which would state:
A marriage between two persons is not invalid by reason only that they are of the same sex.
At the outset, I want to say I cannot support the bill. Obviously, as the title of the act being amended indicates, there are prohibitions on who can marry. Close blood relatives, for instance, are forbidden to marry because of possible birth defects to any children arising out of the marriage. Brothers and sisters may not marry. A divorced person may remarry but not to a child of the previous marriage.
Marriage is considered to be an activity for mature individuals, given the rights and responsibilities that go along with that. Therefore, in this country we do not permit children to marry each other or an adult to marry a child. Both parties to a marriage must be of an age and of an intelligence to understand the serious nature of the institution into which they are entering.
I cannot stress enough the word institution. Institutions are a deep rooted part of our culture and are something that should not be lightly tampered with and should not likely be changed.
Our society, as we are all very much aware, has evolved and these days common law heterosexual or opposite sex couples have the same rights and obligations to property as do married couples. The House, as we are all very much aware as well, recently passed a law extending certain rights with regard to pensions and what have we to common law, homosexual or same sexual couples.
However, at the same time it should be pointed out that the House went out of its way to insert a clause in that legislation reasserting that while being a couple was one thing being a married couple was entirely different. That clause went out of the way to state that a marriage was a union between a man and a woman only. That must be maintained.
The hon. member's proposed title change takes the emphasis off who may not marry and replaces it with an emphasis on who may marry. I do not support the new emphasis because I see it as eroding a basic concept of our law, namely that marriage is restricted to opposite sex couples only.
I want to make it perfectly clear that heterosexual people have to be tolerant of other ways of life. However, I would submit that it is time for homosexual people to be tolerant of the heterosexual way of life as well, which is that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. That is very clear in the legislation.
Similarly, the new section 4.1 says that being a same sex couple should not preclude the union being regarded as a marriage. That is diametrically opposed, as I said a moment ago, to the clause that was inserted in the bill, which restricted marriage to opposite sex couples only.
The other factor here of course for many of us is that a marriage, whether performed by a judge or a clergy person, is deemed to be more than just a sexual union between a man and a woman. A marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our society. It is one of the basic building blocks of a family. It is therefore also a spiritual union between a man and a women, a union uniquely designed for the conception and nurturing of children.
That is not to say, of course, that all married people have children, they do not. However, the potential is there and the institution lends itself very well to that potential should it ever become a reality.
A family, of course, is under pressure from many different directions in this fast-paced secular world in which we live. In all conscience I cannot support motions or bills which would put additional pressure on the institution of marriage, as marriage is one of the central pillars of family life.
Again, let me be clear. I do not support discrimination against same sex couples, however, they do not fit the recognized definition of a marriage because marriage is union of two people of opposite sexes.
I would like to quote what I recently read in the Australian Melbourne Herald Sun . The Australian prime minister, John Howard, said that the reality of homosexual liaisons did not mean that same sex couples should be granted the right to marriage. He went on to say that the institution of marriage should be protected.
He said that the continuity of our society depended on there being a margin around things like that, around marriage. He added that many people, he being one, saw marriage as one of the bedrock institutions of our society.
The Vatican recently stated that the impact on the family needed to be one of the prime considerations in all political action. There is not a major religion on the face of the globe that does not value the role of family in our society today.
I have made no secret of my personal belief that the family is central to the well-being of our society. I also feel that one of the central pillars underpinning the family is marriage and marriage, by definition and by law, is the union of a man and a woman. Because of that, I cannot support the hon. member's bill.