Mr. Speaker, for many Canadians this is a contentious issue. We hold the idea of marriage as fundamental. Personally, my whole life I have seen it as a sacramental notion of marriage. When I talk with people in my riding who are very concerned about this issue, they are very much concerned about the infringement on our notion of the sacramental sense of marriage.
However, it seems to me that there has been a deliberate blurring of the distinction between the sacramental religious nature of marriage and the civil nature of marriage which exists in Canada today. For example, we have heard member after member state that marriage is procreative in nature. If we accept the sacramental basis of marriage, and I was married in a church based on that, I accept that.
When I hear members standing up saying if it is not procreative then it is not marriage, I would suggest what they are saying is that we are rewriting the civil laws of Canada. Then those who went before a justice of the peace would have to state that they were going to procreate, otherwise it would not be a real marriage.
There is another example I would offer the member. People get married at Blue Jays games. They get married jumping out of airplanes. They get married at the bottom of swimming pools in snorkelling outfits. It is not my idea of marriage, but it is a civilly defined understanding of marriage. I do not think that anybody in this House would stand up and say that members of Parliament have to regulate that.
Is the hon. member concerned that there has been a deliberate blurring of the legitimate religious notion of marriage and a very separate sense of civil marriage throughout this debate?