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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, February 20, 2003

0910

The Chair (Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.))

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt (Executive Director, Canada Family Action Coalition)

0915

0920

The Chair

Prof. Katherine Young (McGill University, As Individual)

0925

Dr. Paul Nathanson (As Individual)

0930

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts (Unitarian Church of Montreal)

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts

0935

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts

0940

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

0945

Prof. Katherine Young

Dr. Paul Nathanson

0950

The Chair

Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, BQ)

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Prof. Katherine Young

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

0955

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

The Chair

Mr. Richard Marceau

1000

The Chair

Mr. Richard Marceau

Prof. Katherine Young

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Prof. Katherine Young

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

The Chair

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.)

Rev. Meg Roberts

1005

Mr. John McKay

Rev. Meg Roberts

Mr. John McKay

Rev. Meg Roberts

Mr. John McKay

Rev. Meg Roberts

Mr. John McKay

Rev. Meg Roberts

Mr. John McKay

The Chair

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt

Mr. John McKay

Prof. Katherine Young

1010

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. John McKay

The Chair

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary—Nose Hill, Canadian Alliance)

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

1015

Prof. Katherine Young

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts

Prof. Katherine Young

Rev. Meg Roberts

Prof. Katherine Young

Rev. Meg Roberts

1020

The Chair

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt

The Chair

Rev. Kathy Sage (Kingston Unitarian Fellowship)

The Chair

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.)

Prof. Katherine Young

The Chair

Dr. Paul Nathanson

1025

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ)

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Réal Ménard

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Réal Ménard

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Réal Ménard

1030

Prof. Katherine Young

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts

Mr. Réal Ménard

Rev. Meg Roberts

The Chair

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt

The Chair

1035

Rev. Kathy Sage

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)

The Chair

Prof. Katherine Young

1040

The Chair

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Prof. Katherine Young

1045

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts

The Chair

Mr. John McKay

The Chair

Prof. Katherine Young

1050

The Chair

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

Dr. Paul Nathanson

Mr. Richard Marceau

The Chair

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt

1055

The Chair

Mr. Richard Marceau

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt

The Chair

Rev. Meg Roberts

The Chair

Dr. Paul Nathanson

1100

The Chair

Rev. Kathy Sage

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

NUMBER 020

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Thursday, February 20, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0910)

[English]

The Chair (Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.)): Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), I'd like to call to order the twentieth meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, to undertake a study on marriage and the legal recognition of same-sex unions.

We have today witnesses from three institutions: the Unitarian Church of Montreal, represented by Reverend Meg Roberts and Reverend Kathy Sage from Kingston; the Canada Family Action Coalition, represented by Brian Rushfeldt, the executive director; and McGill University, represented by Professor Katherine Young, and Dr. Paul Nathanson.

The order presented was for the Unitarian Church to go first, but we are waiting for Ms. Sage to arrive, so I'll go to the Canada Family Action Coalition first.

As I'm sure you've been advised, we would ask you to keep your opening comments for your entire organization to 10 minutes. I will give you some signal when you are close to or slightly over the time, which will give more time to the members of the committee to put questions, and so on. I also would request that everybody, including members of the committee, be respectful to each other so that we can engage in an important debate on an important piece of public business respectfully.

So without further ado, I'm going to Mr. Rushfeldt of the Canada Family Action Coalition for 10 minutes.

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt (Executive Director, Canada Family Action Coalition): Mr. Chairman and members, thank you for allowing me to present our brief this morning.

As an introduction, Canada Family Action Coalition is a citizens' action organization devoted to preserving and enhancing the natural, intergenerational family. We promote the ideal of natural family, and, I should hasten to add, not as a matter of some divine revelation that only religious people would understand, but as a matter of natural law and biology, applicable to all people, everywhere and at all times.

I'd like to preface my brief with a brief comment and a concern that the hearings could prove futile if the government doesn't uphold its role granted by the people and the Constitution to defend what it passed a couple of years ago--and I'll refer to that a little later.

Canadians are also increasingly concerned by the trend that certain judges are misusing their position in the courts to impose their own beliefs and political agendas upon all people. I believe the legislative role does not belong in the hands of the judges but in the hands of Parliament.

Now to the brief.

Debating the concept of redefining marriage as anything but a relationship between one man and one woman is a very recent phenomenon. Even a few years ago, when common-law unions sought and received certain benefits and rights, they understood that marriage was distinctly a relationship between one man and one woman, and they did not seek to redefine marriage.

Common-law unions are presented as an alternative form to marriage, and as such, in our opinion, undermine the true institution of marriage and stability for children. I could point to some Statistics Canada reports that indicate 66% of children of common-law unions will see their parents divorce before they reach the age of 10, versus 15% of children of married relationships.

Many studies, including the StatsCan longitudinal study of children, have demonstrated the potential psychological harm of alternatives to committed covenant marriage unions. The attempt to normalize other forms of relationship and equate them with marriage, we believe, is not a responsible action and it's somewhat misguided.

Unique contributions of marriage would include--and I'd like to address some of those--specific reasons why the one man, one woman, exclusive of all others, definition of marriage provides the best foundation for a civil and a healthy society.

First, I want to quote Supreme Court Justice La Forest in the 1995 Nesbit and Egan case. Referring to family, he said:

This is the only unit in society that expends resources...for children on a routine and sustained basis.

He went on to say:

this is the unit in society that fundamentally anchors other social relationships and other aspects of society.

Justice La Forest addressed some principles of marriage in his ruling, but other principles were not addressed. In a covenant marriage between one man and one woman, a number of essential principles are necessary, and they're brought into that relationship by the very nature of the two sexes, sometimes referred to as genders, that are involved. There are only two heterosexual genders, either male or female, not three or five as some would suggest.

The uniqueness of the man-woman marriage institution must be recognized, and in fact is recognized, by almost all societies, cultures, and major religions. This uniqueness includes principles of love, conjugality, covenant union, both emotional and physical, fidelity, monogamy, potential of reproduction, and also what we would term as a unique unitive purpose for the intergenerational continuance of family and society--all of which really culminate in one thing: respect for dignity of the person.

It is the deep unitive purpose of the two genders, man and woman, that proves to be the optimal environment for nurturing offspring and anchoring family, which is the basis of society. It is the truth of the biological, natural innate law that binds the woman and man and gives the family unit the strength and the function for intergenerational continuance.

I must address the cumulative effect of all the principles of marriage when they're brought together, one of those being the major one that we'd like to address this morning, fulfillment of the dignity of the human person.

As a society, we often discuss respect for dignity as a foundational ideal, but then we allow our agendas to drift far from that. I would like to point out that the one man, one woman institution is the only form of relationship, as a general rule, that inherently seeks to meet this basic need for dignity. It meets this need through natural sexual expression, by adhering to fidelity and commitment. It has another uniqueness of the form of love that places the interests of family members above all others, and even procreation. The fact that this does not always occur does not negate the truth that marriage relationships adhere to these principles reasonably consistently.

¿ (0915)

There are two aspects to dignity I want to touch on this morning. First let me focus for a moment on children, as they must be intrinsic to any consideration and discussion of marriage. Placing a child in a situation that purposely creates a fatherless or motherless home environment would show, in our opinion, deep disregard for the dignity of that child. Every child is entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony and has a longing for the biological parents who produced the child to nurture him or her. Consideration of the dignity of the child demands from us as adults of either gender that the child's dignity is given the highest consideration, beyond all our own agendas, beliefs, personal needs, and desires.

Another crucial aspect of human dignity involves human sexuality. Sexual fidelity within marriage is the only expression of human sexuality that truly recognizes the dignity of the person and fulfills the deepest longing of most persons. The harm and the hurt in our culture from violating any of these principles is evident everywhere. We see diseases, unintended pregnancies, broken hearts, psychological illnesses, increased violence, even including murder, and certainly increased health costs and decreased productivity.

The sexual act itself clearly has a component affecting human dignity. Male-female genital intercourse recognizes both biological and natural law, and the full dignity of humanity results from the recognition of biological and natural law. Man-made laws setting boundaries on sexual behaviours such as sodomy, incest, pedophilia, and so forth generally are rooted in the inherent consideration of the dignity of humanity. Marriage demands that all roles, functions, uniquenesses, and principles be applied to completely fulfill the basic needs of humanity. Marriage cannot and should not be compartmentalized.

Let me now address a couple of what we would consider illogical arguments in the debate about marriage. The attempt to equate other forms of relationships to marriage defies logic and common sense and certainly reality. We cannot arbitrarily select any de facto relationship and call it marriage, thinking that calling it so makes it so. I'll use the analogy of a person who we refer to oftentimes as being married to their work or of somebody who is married to his or her art. We would not issue a marriage licence to those people.

All relationships are not the same, just as all races, cultures, and religions are not the same. To try to forcibly equate them as being the same is not just. The attempt to normalize other forms of human relations by equating them to marriage, we would suggest, is unjust and offensive to those who are married.

Finally, I would like to address another danger of altering and attempting to re-engineer the institution of marriage. If the government arbitrarily chooses to give public distinction to any one form of relationship other than a man-woman relationship, then how is it going to deny any other form or all other forms that will demand inclusion? Other proposed forms could include threesomes, and in fact I would remind the people who are here that there was a mock wedding held on Parliament Hill with three people and a member of the clergy who conducted that wedding. We also currently, at this very moment, have a group of three people wanting to legally adopt a child here in Ontario. On what basis will the government deny marriage to multiple partners? How will it deny intergenerational sex unions?

I refer to intergenerational there more as a term that's being used for pedophilia, not to be confused with the intergenerational benefits of family.

Again, these scenarios have already been seen in Canada. The danger of rejecting the fundamental principle of marriage as being between one man and one woman is that when that principle is rejected or removed, then all forms of relationship must be considered. If marriage boundaries are obscured and the principles of marriage are rejected, we know that social confusion, human pain, and other deleterious effects will likely be forced upon society.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would ask that you not be pressured into recommending to Parliament something that ignores the dignity of persons and rejects the uniqueness of the natural male-female relationship and the principles of true marriage. I also would like to just remind you that on June 1999 there was a motion in Parliament, part of which read:

marriage is and should remain the union of man and woman to the exclusion of all others, and Parliament will take all necessary steps within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada to preserve this definition.

I appreciate this time and thank you for receiving this presentation.

¿ (0920)

The Chair: I congratulate you on your 10-minute presentation.

Now I'm going to go to Professor Young and Dr. Nathanson from McGill.

Prof. Katherine Young (McGill University, As Individual): I'm a professor of comparative religion and comparative ethics with a specialization in Asian religions.

From our study of all world religions, such as Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, and the world views of small-scale societies, we conclude that this institution is a culturally approved, opposite-sex relationship intended to encourage the births and rearing of children at least to the extent necessary for the preservation and well-being of society. The underlying assumption of this definition is that human beings are constituted by both nature and culture; culture is not a superficial overlay on something more primitive or basic. Take it away and we would be neither humans or animals, which have much more instinct than humans do to deal with the business of life.

Because the most common biological tendency for human beings, related to the fact that our species has males and females, is heterosexuality, which is a reproductive system with evolutionary advantage, and because heterosexual culture is the necessary complement of heterosexual biology, every human society has fostered it as a norm. In other words, heterosexuality has never been one lifestyle choice among many.

Comparative research reveals a pattern. Marriage has both variable and nearly universal features. Its universal features include the fact that it is supported by authority and incentives, recognizes interdependence of maleness and femaleness as a public dimension, defines eligible partners, encourages procreation under specific conditions, and provides mutual support, not only between men and women but also between them and children. Its nearly universal features, common to all large-scale societies and all world religions, include durability, mutual affection and companionship, family or political alliances, and an intergenerational cycle, the link of young and old. Marriage's variables are things like marriage inside the group or outside, marrying up in status or down, arranged marriage or chosen, sexual equality or hierarchy, polygamy or monogamy, and marriage for everyone or marriage for most.

This is a most important fact now: to focus on the variables of marriage disguises its universal features. These come into view only with a rigorous cross-cultural methodology that uses a sufficient sample of the many types of human societies in the human record. Even though heterosexual culture inclusive of marriage is defined as the norm in all cultures, many cultures have allowed a few exceptions as long as they don't threaten the reproductive cultural system.

Same-sex advocates have also argued, what's all the fuss about? Gay people are a minority; allowing them to marry would mean nothing more than a slight alteration to the existing system and would even add support for the institution.

But consider what might indeed change as a result of defining marriage to include gay couples. It would become very hard on political grounds, for instance, to foster men's commitments through culture to women and children. Traditionally, every society has used symbols and rituals to that end, but the use of culture in this way could be construed as a privileging of heterosexuality and attacked as politically incorrect or even illegal, thus severing the public, culturally supported link between men and family life. Moreover, we would, by default if not by design, be encouraging the reproductive autonomy of women and cutting men out of the cultural life cycle process and the biological life cycle process altogether.

In addition, this would amount to promoting the wants and needs of adults as individuals over the needs of both the children--the ideal of interdependence between men and women for the sake of the children--and the community--the ideal of interdependence between men and women for the sake of society as a whole.

¿ (0925)

Dr. Paul Nathanson (As Individual): The burden of proof is always on those who depart from the status quo, in this case by changing the definition of marriage. My job here is to challenge some of their claims, not to defend the status quo.

I'll discuss now only the two that I find most disturbing for moral, political, and even—as a gay man—personal reasons.

One claim is that gay people require gay marriage in order to maintain their self-esteem. Given that premise, it's easy to see the driving force behind this debate: the idea that people have some moral—and should have some legal—right to state recognition for their personal or collective identity.

This raises questions about the nature of both identity and democracy. Every democracy by definition consists of, even requires, both majorities and minorities. To argue that life is intolerable by virtue of being a minority, in this case being excluded from marriage, is therefore to undermine the foundation of democracy.

One analogy, based on my own experiences as a Jew, should make this clearer. Jews have lived as minority communities for centuries and yet managed to maintain their collective self-esteem, often despite prejudice or persecution far more severe and far more pervasive than anything gay people endure in Canada. Why? Because self-esteem originates within both the individual and the community. In other words, it can be neither conferred nor denied by the state or any other external source.

Canadian Jews expect the state to provide them with protection from anti-Semitic violence, yes, but not with psychological or even symbolic therapy as victims of minority status.

It's true that not every Jew has managed to develop a healthy Jewish identity—a problem our communities have always faced—by taking responsibility for promoting their own intellectual, moral, and spiritual resources.

Speaking as both a Jew and a gay man, therefore, I disagree profoundly with this claim for the necessity of gay marriage.

Jews prefer to live in tolerant societies, of course, as do members of all minority communities. But that doesn't mean refusing to accept the legitimate consequences of minority status within a democratic order. Otherwise, how could we have a democracy? The only question is how to find some balance between the needs of minorities and majorities. Canada opposes any tyranny of the majority. It doesn't allow the persecution of any group, for instance, no matter how many Canadians would privately or even publicly approve.

Like truth, after all, justice cannot be established merely by counting heads. And history, even Canadian history, shows that majorities sometimes make stupid or even immoral choices, which would be worth considering whether most Canadians approve or disapprove of gay marriage.

But so do minorities. It's true that democracy is based on the assumption that minorities will organize politically in their own self-interest—but not by disregarding the needs of society as a whole.

In short, democracy is only as good in moral terms as those who use it. Moreover, this claim about gay marriage foists this problem of inadequate self-esteem onto another minority, single people. If marriage were so vital to self-esteem, after all, then anyone who is either unable or unwilling to marry would be more isolated than ever, and more likely than ever to lack self-esteem.

Another claim for gay marriage is that the children of gay people require it, which is an odd claim, I think, considering the fact that children are hardly ever mentioned in this debate except as bystanders in a conflict over the rights of adults.

Anyway, the point here is not that gay couples are less able to love their children than other couples, or that they teach their children to be gay, which wouldn't be a problem in any case, unless you believe there's something inherently wrong with homosexuality, and we don't.

The point is that children need more than love from their parents, whether gay or straight. One thing they need is at least one parent of each sex. Why at least one? It's because an extended family, with aunts, uncles, and grandparents, is much closer to the ideal than an isolated nuclear family.

Why at least one of each? Because men and women are not interchangeable. Though far more similar than dissimilar, each sex is distinctive. Boys cannot learn how to become healthy men even from the most loving mother or pair of mothers alone. Nor can girls learn how to become healthy women from even the most loving father or pair of fathers alone.

And the need for fathers is particularly acute for boys. Like girls, they must separate from their mothers. Unlike girls, they must also switch the focus of their identity from one sex to the other.

The same problems arise for gay parents, then, as for straight single parents. There have always been single parents because of death, divorce, and desertion, but these were once the exceptions. Now that divorce has become so common, the phenomenon has changed.

Single parenting, more and more often by choice, has become a lifestyle. The message to men is that fathers have no distinctive and necessary function in family life. According to much of the rhetoric that prevails these days, they are luxuries at best as assistant mothers and liabilities at worst as potential molesters. In this atmosphere, why would anyone expect fathers to stick around as active participants in family life?

¿ (0930)

The results of fatherless children on a massive scale are discouraging, even under the status quo. Allowing gay marriage would only exacerbate the problem. Before doing so, therefore, we should at least acknowledge that we're involved in a massive experiment, one that involves future generations and for which we have hardly any preparation.

People are not like rats in a lab. Mistakes are more costly. Unforeseen things are more likely to happen because of social engineering, just as they are because of any other kind. We try to fix problems, but we always end up replacing one with another.

Forty years ago it seemed like common sense that changing the divorce laws would be an act of compassion for the few, but one that would make little or no difference to the many. That was naive, to say the least. It changed us in ways that no one could have imagined. For better or for worse—better for some, worse for others—we now live in a divorce culture.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

My admiration goes to the translators.

I'm going to call on the Unitarian Church, as represented by Meg Roberts. We'll brief—

Rev. Meg Roberts (Unitarian Church of Montreal): I'm doing the presentation, in any event. I just wanted Kathy to be here. I'm comfortable to go ahead.

The Chair: Thank you.

Rev. Meg Roberts: Good morning.

It's a privilege to be here with you this morning and to hear other people's points of view as well as to be able to express my own.

My name is Reverend Meg Roberts. I'm a Unitarian Universalist minister. As someone born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, growing up in Saskatoon, it's nice to sit next to someone from Calgary.

I also spent time in Vancouver as a lay chaplain. Unitarians have lay chaplains who do rights of passage, and at that time I did same-sex unions—we called them “services of union”. Now I have the privilege of filling in for my colleague, Ray Drennan, at the Unitarian Church of Montreal for six months while he's on sabbatical.

The Unitarian Church of Montreal is the historic first congregation of Unitarians in Canada. It was established in Montreal in 1842. Unitarians and Universalists come from a wide spectrum of beliefs and philosophies, mirroring, in some ways, our multi-faith world, as well as our recognition that some people believe in God and some don't. We have atheists as well as theists as well as people from Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist, etc., backgrounds.

As Unitarians and Universalists, we come together to affirm common principles to work together to build a better world. Our first principle that we affirm here in North America as Unitarians and Universalists is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The second is justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

Unitarianism, for those of you who may not know much about it, dates back to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, and Universalism to the 18th century in Europe. Unitarians and Universalists exist in different parts of our world, and the North American association called the Unitarian Universalist Association has over 1,000 churches and over 200,000 members. The Canadian Unitarian Council represents over 5,200 members in our congregations in Canada, and the church in Montreal has a membership of over 200.

Since the 1970s, Unitarian and Universalist congregations have spoken out in favour of the rights of gays, lesbians, and bisexual persons and against homophobia and all forms of discrimination against such persons on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Here in Canada our clergy has been officiating at marriage services for same-sex unions since the 1970s. The ceremony of union recognizes that it is important for same-sex couples' spiritual, emotional, and social union to be recognized and celebrated by themselves, by their families, and by society. Unfortunately, until now these unions have not been recognized legally. I've had the privilege of officiating at several such celebrations of love and commitment, and that's partly why I feel so inspired to be here to speak in favour of same-sex marriage.

I applaud the initiative of the Government of Canada and the work of this committee to look at discussing with Canadians ways to redress a situation I believe to be discriminatory, one that has existed far too long among us. I appreciate your discussion paper offering three options--among many, of course--for Canadians to consider. Although the discussion makes considerable progress towards conferring equity on same-sex partners, I don't believe that the three options suggested are all feasible, and I think your discussion paper does a good job in pointing out some of the deficiencies.

I advocate, therefore, a federal law that legalizes same-sex marriages so that same-sex partners will have the option of celebrating their relationship in a marriage with rights and responsibilities under federal law. I believe it is important for us as Canadians to speak out at this time, and I'm sad that this committee does not have the finances with which to travel around the country because--you do?

¿ (0935)

The Chair: At one o'clock today we'll know.

Rev. Meg Roberts: I'll keep my fingers crossed on your behalf. That's great news, and I hope for your sake that you're able to go across the country to hear our voices.

Why do I think that marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples? I believe it is the one solution that is in accord with our Canadian values of justice, equity, and valuing diversity. In our diverse, multi-faith, and secular society the option of including same-sex couples is, in my belief, the one we have come to.

Same-sex marriage, like opposite-sex marriage, is a ceremony where the couple formally recognize their commitment to one another in the presence of their family and friends. Same-sex marriage, like opposite-sex marriage, is a political and social instrument to ensure the rights and responsibilities of each partner. It provides a safe and nurturing environment for the growth and development of children. Those come from experiences I have had as well as some of the material I have read through organizations that support same-sex marriage.

I agree with the reasons mentioned in your discussion paper that marriage for same-sex couples fully addresses their equity concerns, whereas the other options do not.

Why should marriage not remain an opposite-sex institution? In many discussions around marriage there's the assumption that marriage should be only between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all other forms because it's the traditional form of marriage. I would want us to consider that traditions are customs that exist at certain times for certain lengths of time in certain societies. It's important to consider that they do not remain the same over time but adapt and change according to our changing understanding of our world.

In earlier times it was traditional that people married within their faith groups, and people marrying someone from a different faith group were frowned upon in many European countries and in North America, and it was not encouraged. However, as we know, it is a commonly accepted practice in Canada today. It also used to be a traditional practice not to marry someone from a different racial group, yet today it is a commonly accepted practice.

Customs and traditions change over time. For example, consider that at one time the tradition, what seemed to make sense and was reasonable, was that women, aboriginal people, and people of colour were not persons. I ask you to consider what tradition and law were in the past and how they have changed over time.

The majority of Canadians now recognize the importance of same-sex couples' rights, and the statistics in your discussion paper support this. Even more important than statistics, I believe, is the role Parliament has in upholding human rights. I think it's important that the federal government play a role in deciding who can legally marry. Religious organizations are voluntary associations, so I think it's important that if we are considering whether the federal government should stay in or not, I say they need to stay in. Not everyone is part of a religious organization.

Canadian law, however, is not something we can choose to participate in or not. It applies to our whole society. That's fundamentally why the federal government needs to make a decision about including same-sex couples in the definition of marriage. Society as we presently establish it has made marriage the basis for legitimizing relationships and for guaranteeing the civil rights of adults entering a relationship and of their children. It's unjust for any society to withhold at any time any rights and responsibilities on the basis of sexual orientation.

¿ (0940)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'm going to go to Mr. Sorenson for 10 minutes, and the 10 minutes includes both...

I'm sorry, it's seven minutes.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll gladly take that extra three minutes.

The Chair: The seven minutes applies to both the intervention and the responses, and please direct your question, if possible.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson: I want to thank all four of you for appearing before our committee today. There were some excellent presentations.

Our responsibility as a committee is to examine the definition of marriage. Sometimes I have felt that maybe in certain aspects we're putting the cart ahead of the horse. Traditionally we have looked at the union of one man and one woman and have defined that as marriage. Now we're taking the word marriage and are seeing how it can be changed and altered.

We've had many different people come in from the religious perspective, as today. Also, there are many religious considerations that we need to analyse before our committee. There are many political considerations. I know that in my constituency, and it's been brought out by others, the number of letters I receive on the changing of the definition of marriage—hundreds and hundreds of letters into my constituency office and into the office here.... And there is as well the legal perspective that we need to consider.

I want to ask a question mainly of the three witnesses on my far right. First of all, Ms. Young, you said in your presentation here, or the brief that you gave—maybe it was both of you; I think it was a combined brief—that marriage is a matter of communal importance. You also go on to say that it serves our cultural norms and that we play with it at great peril. I'm wondering if you could expand a little on that concept of the peril we as a society face.

Also, you say that at the very least Canadians should understand that we are contemplating the most serious human experiment in history. I wonder if you would expand a little on that, on why there should be such a concern over what you call an “experiment” with this.

Mr. Nathanson, you talked some about the children, and I appreciate that. In fact, your brief brought out very clearly that the children are sometimes the forgotten part of this whole change of the definition.

Concerning the children of gay couples, we've been told by gays who have come in here that their self-esteem is at risk. They go to the school or different places and they can't say that their parents or their guardians are married.

Maybe you could expand on those three or four concerns.

¿ (0945)

Prof. Katherine Young: I'd like to begin by apologizing for speaking so quickly, especially for the translators and for my French colleagues. If I go too quickly, slow me down this time.

I argued that marriage has communal importance because my research is a kind of empirical research. I take all the different cultures—small-scale and large-scale—and I look for the repetitive characteristics. One of the characteristics that appears across time and across space is that marriage has a public dimension to it and has the highest authorities to it, whether it's the ancestors, the deities, scripture, or law. It's never been a private affair. It's always had a public, communal dimension to it. Now this communal dimension, which is there across cultures, has to be there for a reason. We wouldn't find things so universally important if there weren't good reasons for it.

The communal dimension is that the reproductive cycle that allows human existence to occur has to be done not only through biology—that's simply mating, simply intercourse—but in human beings it takes culture. This culture, therefore, has to be defined by the community as a norm and passed on through families and through socialization. It's not a haphazard process.

As a result, marriages have always been fairly conservative in societies, but as I defined them, there are nearly universal features and variables. The variables allow societies to adjust to new circumstances. In the last period of time we needed large families for agricultural societies. Now that we're an industrial society, we need small families. Before, women were quite constrained within family life; now we've had reforms to give women an equal partnership in marriages.

So there are variables that adjust to changing circumstances. But the business of taking care of the reproductive cycle on which human existence is based has to be done with community input and the highest authorities, which is why it's embedded in religion and becomes embedded in law.

So why do we tamper with this at great peril, and why is it such a massive experiment? It's because having these universal features at least should wake us up to being very cautious and to knowing that we're going against human history when we do this.

The same-sex marriage advocates have argued that there are precedents of same-sex marriage. I've looked at all of that evidence, and it's always been the exception in societies that have had opposite-sex marriage as a norm, and even within societies that have allowed those exceptions—not all have—they have always had adjustments to the communal, public norm of reproduction, which at its essence is marriage.

Dr. Paul Nathanson: I hope I remember your questions.

First of all, I didn't actually say it was the most massive experiment in human history. I don't really know whether it is. It certainly is an experiment.

The other thing you mentioned was self-esteem. I would argue, certainly from my own experience, that for children growing up gay, it's certainly more difficult to generate self-esteem than for other people—although frankly there are so many reasons that can prevent people from having self-esteem that I wouldn't say it's anything unique.

But I would argue that the problem these people have, including myself, is not because their parents are unmarried; it's because they're gay. It's because they are different.

Secondly, I would argue that in 2003 marriage doesn't confer a lot of status. The institution has really been demoted in many ways. There are many people who don't have married parents. Having children out of wedlock is no longer what it was 40 or 50 years ago. I think the status of marriage itself can be exaggerated. Whether that's good or bad is another matter, but I don't think gay marriage is going to solve this problem.

¿ (0950)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I go now to Mr. Marceau for seven minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I'd like to have something clarified for me. On today's agenda, we have listed as witnesses Professor Katherine K. Young and Dr. Paul Nathanson, McGill University. Are you appearing as spokespersons for McGill University?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: The answer is, no, we don't.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I want to be clear about this. You are not here to speak on behalf of McGill University. You work at McGill and you are appearing here as individuals, not as spokespersons for McGill University. Correct?

[English]

Prof. Katherine Young: No, of course, we're not spokespeople for McGill University. A university always allows its professors to do research and to present their research in academic arenas, as well as in the public arena. So I am here simply as Professor Young, with research that I do, and I am presenting it on my basis, not the university's.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Thank you.

Now then, I'd like to focus on certain portions of your brief.

Dr. Nathanson, on page 5 of your submission, you mention human experimentation. You claim that contemplating same-sex marriage would be like contemplating the most serious human experiment in history.

Rather surprisingly, you go on to state the following:

People are not like rats in a lab; utopian experiments that go wrong have often caused suffering on a colossal scale.

Are you saying that if the committee were to propose to the government that it sanction same-sex marriages, the end result could be suffering on a colossal scale?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: First of all, once again, I didn't say it was the most massive experiment in human history. I said it is a major experiment.

¿ (0955)

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Just a moment. The French version reads as follows, and I quote:

À tout le moins, les Canadiens devraient savoir qu'ils envisagent l'expérimentation humaine la plus grave de l'histoire.

Unless the problem lies with the...

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: No. Maybe that's the translator. I didn't say that in English.

Mr. Richard Marceau: The brief says that, I think.

Dr. Paul Nathanson: Serious--not most important, but serious.

Mr. Richard Marceau: The most serious.

Dr. Paul Nathanson: Anyway, my point isn't really to make any comparative statement there, but it is a serious experiment. We don't know in fact what the results will be, just as we don't know in any other kind of social engineering. Maybe it will be good, maybe it won't. We just don't know.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: It's not a problem as far as I'm concerned, but do you really believe sanctioning gay marriage will lead to suffering on a colossal scale?

Dr. Paul Nathanson: Perhaps.

Mr. Richard Marceau: Could you give me an example?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: It depends on what happens to the children. The analogy I used was divorce. Now, we may divorce easily legally. It's not always easy psychologically, but we made it easy legally. That had some good effects. There were people who really needed to be divorced. But one of the unintended by-products of that was that we've created a massive phenomenon that had not existed before. Among the results of that experiment are the children of divorce and the problems they encounter. It's no longer the same phenomenon because when you have a few people divorcing and you have a larger society that maintains a way of life, that's one thing, but when the majority of people are doing something, the phenomenon itself is no longer the same. It has different parameters; it has different results. It has a life of its own, in other words. We don't know. The results of massive divorce so far are not very encouraging.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Apart from the expression “suffering on a colossal scale”, I don't quite understand what you mean further on in your brief when you state: “Others, seeking a quick fix, succumb to totalitarianism”.

I find it rather odd to hear you speak of same-sex marriage as a very serious form of human experimentation and later, to say that this experiment could cause suffering on a colossal scale and then to further claim that persons in search of a quick fix may succumb to totalitarianism. I fail to see the logical connection between same-sex marriage and a totalitarian society.

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: No, it's not a direct connection. It all depends on how society tries to fix the problems that result. We don't know how that would happen.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: On page 6 of your brief, you compare gay marriage and interracial marriage. You state the following:

But the analogy is seriously flawed, because it assumes that all those who oppose gay marriage, like those who oppose interracial marriage, are bigots.

How can you make such a claim?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: I don't know about this word in the translation. I never used that word in English.

Mr. Richard Marceau: Can I have the English version?

The Chair: Yes.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I'm trying to find the corresponding English text. If the problem lies with the translation, then it's a serious one. The excerpt in question is on page 11 of the French version. It reads as follows: “L'interdiction du mariage homosexuel est comme celle du mariage mixte”.

À (1000)

[English]

The Chair: You're following the translation, Richard. In the English it's the bottom of page 6.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I see. You state the following:

[English]

But the analogy is seriously flawed, because it assumes that all those who oppose gay marriage, like those who oppose interracial marriage, are bigots.

[Translation]

How can you make such a claim? How can you make such an assumption of a person who opposes this?

[English]

Prof. Katherine Young: I think if we look at the fact that there are good reasons for supporting heterosexual marriage as the norm, then you can't simply say that somebody who opposes gay marriage is a bigot.

Dr. Paul Nathanson: But you can say it I think in opposing interracial marriage.

Prof. Katherine Young: The argument is that it is a flawed analogy.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I see. However, if the analogy is flawed, then how can you draw a comparison with the situation of Jews in England on the following page?

You maintain that comparing the ban on gay marriage to a ban on mixed, or interracial marriage is a flawed analogy. However, on the next page, you use the example of the Jews in England to argue a point. This is a contradiction.

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: Well, all I was saying about the Jews in England is that even though England is an officially Christian state, Jews do not feel persecuted because of that fact.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I understand. Are they allowed to marry in England?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: I didn't say anything about Jewish marriage at all.

Jews of course prefer to marry other Jews. It's not a racial category; it's a religious one. In other words, what they want is to perpetuate Torah. If people from other races convert to Judaism, that's just fine. It's not at all like the opposition to interracial marriage, which advocates that people, simply by virtue of being who they are, are ineligible to marry each other.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I understand that. However, you claim that you cannot compare discrimination toward homosexuals with discrimination toward ethnic or religious groups. Then, on the next page, to support your position, you state that the Jews are in a minority in England, an officially Christian state. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot argue one thing on one page, and the opposite on the following page.

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: No, they are two completely different topics. One is the topic of interracial marriage and the other is simply the discussion of the nature of being a minority. Those two arguments are not related.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: May I ask one last question?

[English]

The Chair: Mr. MacKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the witnesses.

As you can see, this may be a divided committee, but I don't know if we're hostile to each other.

My first question is to Reverend Roberts, and that has to do with your church. You describe yourself as a minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church. As you know, we're studying the definition of marriage, and I understand your argument that you see no real reason for not including same-sex couples in marriage, but the definition is of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others.

I have a paper here that says that the philosophy and practice of loving more than one other person at a time was presented to a general assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association. The Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness argued for the endorsement of unconventional arrangements as a genuine philosophical alternative to monogamy. Can you tell me what the position of your church is with respect to the second part of that definition, “to the exclusion of all others”?

Rev. Meg Roberts: Certainly. For those who don't know, Unitarians are congregationally based. That is, their polity, their governance, is such that they make decisions by congregation, and the association of congregations, whether it's the Unitarian Universalist Association or the Canadian Unitarian Council, vote together on resolutions, and that's one of them. I think you're referring to something that may have been brought forward to the Unitarian Universalist Association's general assembly.

À (1005)

Mr. John McKay: Is it the position of Universalist Unitarians generally that--

Rev. Meg Roberts: Well, I don't have in front of me what I understand you to say. There is a Unitarian Universalist group that supports polyamory. It's one organization amongst many. There are the delegates who vote on behalf of the association, and then there are separate organizations that are Unitarian Universalists who come together with certain issues such as gay and lesbian issues, history, polyamory, paganism, etc. I believe that would be a group that would have been bringing something before the general assembly on this issue.

Can you run it by me again?

Mr. John McKay: It just says that this is the mission statement of the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, and it goes on to give a definition.

Rev. Meg Roberts: That could be one of the associate organizations. Like other groups, including social justice groups, they can bring forward resolutions to the general assembly. At this time I don't believe the UUA or the CUC has any resolution stating support of polyamory, although there are individuals amongst the Unitarians who are in support of polyamory.

So I can't really speak to that, but if it would be useful for you, I can give you my personal view here. There are many different forms of love in the world, and my understanding is that at this point, at least 10% of the population has same-sex orientation and affectational orientation to one another. The “norm”, as we say, is probably 90%. Well, 10% of the population is left-handed--I'm one of them--and 90% of the population is right-handed. I'd suggest we need to be careful when we talk about norms and about individual groups.

Everyone has the right to have discussions about the experiences they have. What I appreciate about Canada is that we have diversity and that we recognize diversity.

Mr. John McKay: But what we're talking about here--

Rev. Meg Roberts: The example of polyamory, which is I think what you want me to address--

Mr. John McKay: The issue is, we're addressing the definition in law, and either your church supports the notion that it's to the exclusion of all others or it doesn't. I just want to know, where is the status of the discussion?

Rev. Meg Roberts: To my knowledge, no resolution on polyamory has ever been brought forward or passed by the UUA, the CUC, or the Unitarian Church of Montreal. What we have passed at both the CUC and the UUA is that we believe same-sex marriage should be legalized. That would be the change of definition from “man and woman” to the exclusion of all others to “two persons” to the exclusion of all others. That's what we're in support of.

Mr. John McKay: Okay. Just to summarize....

Sorry.

The Chair: Mr. Rushfeldt also wants to answer.

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt: I just want to address the issue of diversity or tolerance in light of the debate. As I understand it, diversity recognizes differences. I believe what we're being asked in Canada right now by certain people is to not respect the differences but to try to lump them all under one structure, which is the marriage structure.

To me, that does not respect diversity. You can't just say you're respecting all these differences when you still want them all lumped under the term “marriage”, or under that particular structure.

Mr. John McKay: My second question picks up on a question that Mr. Macklin and also Mr. Lee mentioned late yesterday afternoon, when we were talking about this. I'd like to try to get it down to its essence.

In this place we always sort of keep an eye on what's going on down the street at the Supreme Court of Canada. We are under the illusion that it's a dialogue. Some of us are a little more cynical and think it's a bit of a monologue, but that's another issue.

The issue I'm referring to is that section 1 states marriage is subject only to such reasonable limits as prescribed by law and can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. I'd appreciate it if Professors Young and Nathanson would flesh out for us what can be demonstrably justified.

Prof. Katherine Young: Again, I think human history gives you the record of what's demonstrably justified in the sense that certain choices have always been made. Exceptions have been allowed once the norms have been defined. The norms permit some latitude to make adjustments to new circumstances, as I said before, but that is the human record of justification.

That being said, we should take seriously that universal...then we can still come back and say, but let's still think of good reasons. What are the good reasons for doing this? Let me begin by saying every ethical analysis begins with an analysis of risks and harms. It's perfectly legitimate in this kind of a discussion to put the risks and harms on the table along with the benefits.

So what are the risks? This goes back to our experiment issue. However seriously we're going to define that, I think it's quite serious that we risk decoupling fathers from women and children. Heterosexuality needs culture; it's not just a biological thing. It takes culture to bring men into that fundamental link with women and children because it's the weakest link in that biological triangle; culture is needed to do that. If we take it away and we don't allow people to say that it's important for heterosexual males to be fathers, that it does something to identity, and to use culture to link them with women and children, then we're disturbing that basic raison d'être of the system.

We also have to say that we have to bond men and women together in human societies or we get polarized societies, and that bonding comes again through culture. There are massive amounts of culture we don't even think about any more. It's as if nature...and we have to use culture for guiding heterosexuality, especially through adolescence. That takes culture too. Take that away and you no longer have something that supports heterosexual identity and that reproductive process.

À (1010)

Dr. Paul Nathanson: I'd just like to add something. Your question was I think backwards in a way. I think the burden of proof should not be on the people who want to just maintain the status quo. The burden of proof must be on the people who want to change it. They have to prove that they have compelling enough reasons to make a change.

Mr. John McKay: I would agree on that point.

The Chair: I would like to go now to Ms. Ablonczy.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary—Nose Hill, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

I'm not a regular member of this committee, but of course as an MP I've been the recipient of many communications on this issue. One of the arguments I hear is that same-sex couples love each other, have a commitment to each other, and should be able to celebrate that commitment in marriage. Reverend Roberts mentioned that she views this as a celebration of love. Dr. Nathanson, I think you're uniquely qualified to speak on this intersection of love and marriage and how we should view changing public policy in light of those kinds of feelings within our society, so I'd ask for your comment on that issue.

Dr. Paul Nathanson: First of all, neither Katherine nor I oppose--in fact, I would greatly support--love between gay people as between any other people, and there are churches that in fact do celebrate that; the Unitarian Church is one. I have no problem with that. It's the question of whether this should be done in the specific context of marriage that I think is problematic.

I'd also say, judging from popular culture such as Valentine's Day and what have you, that most people today assume that marriage is primarily about love, which is to say, emotional gratification. Now, I don't want to argue that is not part of marriage, but I certainly would not want to say that is the sine qua non and the only defining feature of marriage. There's a lot more involved in marriage; we've talked a little bit about children and we've talked about society. I think that anything that is going to cause people to think even more that all this is just about love--why shouldn't gay people love and therefore why shouldn't they marry--really distorts the concept of marriage. Marriage is not just about emotional gratification.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I would like to follow up with Professor Young. Because of your studies, you mentioned that there has been in some societies an acceptance of same-sex unions as marriage. I don't know if that's correct or not. If there has been, I wonder if you could give us some idea of both the extent of that and any impact that may have had when social policy was changed in that particular way.

À (1015)

Prof. Katherine Young: If we look across the human record, where the anthropologists have recorded everything that has been observed--within the modern period, anyway--then we see that there are a few examples of same-sex marriage. But if you look at the literature coming from same-sex advocates, they often use the examples of same-sex relationships to stand for same-sex marriage, and there is a lot more evidence of same-sex relationships than there is for same-sex marriage.

Then they often do not look at the context. If you look carefully at the context of those few examples of same-sex marriage, you see that they're usually adjusted to the larger norm of heterosexual reproduction, marriage, and family life. For example, the same-sex marriage may be the second marriage of a reproductive male who has a heterosexual marriage, or the number of people allowed into this context are limited by the shamans and so forth. So one argument is that you can't take these things out of context; you have to look very carefully at them.

Another set of examples really comes from initiation rituals and not marriages per se. They use a similar kind of symbolism, but then the male, after a certain period of same-sex relations, goes through a heterosexual marriage, as in ancient Greece, and then back into a heterosexual orientation. If you conflate those two because the language is similar, you're going to end up with more examples, yet that is not the case.

There are also many examples of love using marriage analogies, but it's more to speak about the love of the same-sex couple than marriage. Though we do have some examples, they're always the exceptions. They may be honoured; it's not that they're negatively viewed, but they're limited within a specific context, and that adjustment has been made.

There may be some societies that didn't make that, but there are also societies that disappear if their reproductive systems get too far out of whack.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I want to advise members of the committee and the panel that sometimes we can drift past our deadline, but the agriculture committee is coming in at 11 o'clock, so try to be concise.

Ms. Roberts.

Rev. Meg Roberts: I appreciate some of the material Dr. Young has brought forward about considering what the norm is. One of the norms, that is, the features we look at if we look at the regular features of marriage across time... The norm means what is the greatest number, right? It doesn't mean that there aren't variables, as you said. Tell me about the norm.

Prof. Katherine Young: The norm is the ideal. There are two meanings of “norm”, so you're right. One is simply the average, but the norm we're talking about here is the ideal that—

Rev. Meg Roberts: You're using it as the ideal.

Prof. Katherine Young: —the community sets.

Rev. Meg Roberts: Right, and that's why I made references to the fact that--and I think Mr. Marceau was also doing that--the idea we have of what is ideal in a society shifts over time. If in the past and in many countries still we look at the norm, the ideal of marriage, as being for supporting the reproductive cycle, I'd want to suggest taking into account that we live in an overpopulated world. We recognize now, particularly in North America, that it's no longer necessary to have a reproductive cycle that's going to ensure that we keep going as a human species. Instead, since we're using up the resources, what we need to take into account is what is our ideal for justice for same-sex as well as for opposite-sex people.

When we make reference to other kinds of societies and to what their ideals are, they, particularly the federal government, don't take into account our view, recognizing that same-sex couples also have a right to certain kinds of benefits.

À (1020)

The Chair: Mr. Rushfeldt, please.

I can't go back, Ms. Young. I have a long list and not much time.

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt: Thank you. I'll be brief.

I think Mr. Nathanson brought up the issue of love. We've heard about celebration and covenant. I want to remind us that what makes the marriage institution unique, in my opinion, is the cumulative effect of all of these issues.

You can have two people who love each other. I know daughters and fathers who love each other. If we base marriage on that, are we then going to say a father can marry a daughter because he loves her? No. I think we have to look at the cumulative overall issue of what makes marriage unique.

If there are other forms of relationships, that's fine; I don't object to those. But let's not try to push those into the marriage box, because they simply don't fit.

The Chair: I apologize. I should have welcomed Ms. Sage before. I hope your trip from Kingston wasn't too troubling.

Rev. Kathy Sage (Kingston Unitarian Fellowship): It's the parking here more than the trip here.

The Chair: I'll add that to our list.

Now I'll go to Mr. Macklin for three minutes.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Part of the difficulty we have is trying to grasp what at times seems to be smoke in this argument. In much of the argument, of course, we are looking at trying to find equal protection and equal benefits for all people in this relationship that one seeks to define as marriage.

It seems Professors Young and Nathanson are advancing something that says you can be in these committed relationships but this isn't simply an evolutionary process of marriage. It's something more than simply achieving a symbol to say that we would redefine marriage as all-inclusive of same-sex couples and heterosexual couples. That's the case that's being advanced. We're hearing that it's not the equality but the symbolism that is the key to the desire to have and achieve a unity of marriage among all peoples, heterosexual and homosexual.

Can you break that out and give us your thoughts on that argument that's being advanced?

Prof. Katherine Young: Equality is something we all believe in, but underneath our political equality we have the differences between male and female bodies. We have an inherent difference between maleness and femaleness; therefore, culture has always had to address those differences.

We can say that in the past same-sex couples could have developed norms for marriage. A community of women could have always got sperm and had a community of women. Men could have always abducted children or somehow obtained children once they were born and created a community of men. But that never happened, so that means people felt it was important to address these differences of maleness and femaleness, bring them together in some kind of institution, and support that institution for the sake of the community, the children, and bonding of males and females.

I don't know if that's where you wanted me to go with your question.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Macklin.

Mr. Nathanson.

Dr. Paul Nathanson: I think you're right. We are talking about a battle over symbols here, not about benefits.

In my presentation I was trying to talk about what it meant to be in a minority. This is a democracy and we are all, in one way or another, minority groups. So if we say that minority status is an intolerable symbol and we must have another symbol and be the majority, then you can't have a democracy. I don't want to tie identity and all the symbols around identity to the idea of being part of the majority. I think that's an untenable position just on general political and philosophical grounds, not to mention psychological.

The example I used was simply that Jews have been and are a minority, and have certainly paid for being a minority. But that has not meant that their self-esteem or their identity as Jews has suffered.

À (1025)

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Roberts.

Rev. Meg Roberts: My understanding is your question was around the symbolism of marriage and its importance. In my mind there is a very strong reason why symbolism for gay and lesbian couples is important.

We already know the practical benefits. As an institution, marriage is recognized in Canadian culture as the forum for both romantic and erotic love in a conjugal relationship between a couple that has common values and wants this to endure for the long term. That is something gay and lesbian couples want recognized because that's what already exists.

They want access to that as an institution, and not allowing it means they are being discriminated against. The symbolism is recognized by them and it's not being allowed them, so that's why they are pushing for justice and to get away from discrimination.

The Chair: Mr. Ménard is next for three minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): With all due respect for Dr. Nathanson and Professor Young, I think their brief contains some serious flaws from the standpoint of rigour and logic.

First of all, homosexuals are not seeking to commit to marriage for the sake of a democratic ideal or because they view themselves as being in a minority. They want to get married because they believe in love and because they want to take their place in society. It has nothing to do with having a minority or majority status in society.

Secondly, your arguments do not hold up under closer scrutiny. There have always been homosexual groups in all societies. Depending on cultural tenets, they may not have been able to openly live as homosexuals, but that's another debate entirely.

You've argued this morning that the greatest threat to marriage is divorce, and you're right. However, until someone can prove otherwise, gays have never been part of the institution of marriage and yet, divorce is a reality. Therefore, how would allowing gays and homosexuals who believe in the values of marriage to get married weaken the very fabric of this institution, when divorce is in fact the greatest threat?

Your argument is flawed from the standpoint of logic and cannot withstand analysis. You need to rethink your position. If I were a professor and a student had written a paper in which he had made a similar type of argument, he would have received an A+ for cultural relativity, but a D- for logic.

Later, I will have a question for Mr. Rushfeldt.

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: As I pointed out before, you're equating marriage and love, and that is not an equation I would make. I see no logical connection. That's not to say love is not part of marriage, but I don't believe that is the defining feature.

Now I forget the other part of the question.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Are you married?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: No.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Do you think that if you were to marry one day, it would be merely a business arrangement? If love is not the fundamental value underlying the institution of marriage, what is?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: We've tried to discuss that. We've mentioned several things, such as providing an appropriate context for raising children and the bonding between men and women.

I'm just trying to say love is not necessarily the defining feature of marriage. I don't see why marriage is the only way to confer dignity on loving relationships. I don't believe that marriage or any state intervention can actually confer dignity in the first place.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: In my social circle, I know of no one who has married without being in love, except perhaps for a student who married to be eligible for loans and scholarships. All of my friends and acquaintances married because they were in love. Let me assure you that if ever I get married, it will be for love.

À (1030)

[English]

Prof. Katherine Young: We're not saying that if gay marriage were allowed it would increase the divorce rate. The divorce rate is something that's going on, with another set of problems. But we're saying that heterosexual culture would no longer be public culture. It would be called privileging heterosexuality and it wouldn't be allowed. That would mean this cultural counterpart of biology would collapse. With that, another set of things could happen. So I think they are two very different issues and shouldn't be conflated.

The Chair: You can have one more question, Mr. Ménard, and we'll get to those who have their hands up.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Raising the issue of polygamy is, in my estimation, a totally false argument, one that borders on dishonesty. There is no link between polygamy and gay marriage, because polygamy is not a value that is defended in Canadian society. No court of law, no charter, no organized movement is engaged in the promotion of polygamy, because this practice goes against the principle of the equality of all persons.

If the only argument that can be advanced is that recognizing gay rights will result in the acceptance of polygamy, then this argument is worthless from the standpoint of logic and Canadian values.

[English]

The Chair: I see hands up everywhere. I even see a few hands in the back. I'll go first to Ms. Roberts, because she did it first. But I'd like everybody to try to be very concise in response, like Mr. Ménard. I have been generous with Mr. Ménard. It's his birthday.

Go ahead.

Rev. Meg Roberts: Your original point has been lost. That's what I wanted to respond to. Can you remind me what it was?

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: It had to do with divorce weakening the fabric of the institution of marriage, when in fact gays have never been part of this institution and despite this fact, marriage as an institution is threatened.

[English]

Rev. Meg Roberts: Yes, as you've recognized, divorce is not the point here. That's a separate issue. What we all want to address is healthy relationships, same-sex and opposite-sex.

What I'm hearing, if I understand correctly, is that when we look at marriage as being the institution to support gender definitions of male and female, it's important for us to recognize that maleness and femaleness are embedded in us all. I am both male and female in the cultural sense, not in the biological sense. I don't believe same sex-marriage endangers that.

The other point I want to make is that because the majority is currently heterosexual, it's very important that we not get into heterosexism and that we recognize the importance of sharing the rights for minorities as well.

I think the distinction, as you were talking about for Jewish people, for heterosexual people is that we recognize that marriage just isn't about...that marriage also holds, for gays and lesbians who wish to be married, the opportunity, if this is made legal for them, to have privileges extended to them that weren't in the past.

And I've lost my train of thought. Sorry about that.

The Chair: Mr. Rushfeldt, very briefly, please.

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt: I'd just like to suggest to Mr. Ménard, on the issue of love, that perhaps the definition of love is not as clear as we might all assume, because I think love has to take in consideration of the biological makeup of the other person.

You mentioned polygamy, that there's no movement to push for polygamy. But let me remind you, right here on Parliament Hill two or three years ago we had three individuals coming up, wanting to be married. Twenty years ago there wasn't a push for same-sex relationships to be married either. If we do decide that marriage becomes, by the stroke of a pen, whatever we want it to be, then there will be--I am 100% convinced--other groups coming along to push.

The Chair: Ms. Sage, did I see your hand? Go ahead.

À (1035)

Rev. Kathy Sage: Thank you, and I apologize for being late.

I would like to speak from a very practical viewpoint. I am a Unitarian minister. I have conducted services of union for gays and lesbians. One just this past summer joined together two women, one with five children and one with two children from previous heterosexual marriages. They came together in a loving relationship.

As a minister, I want to offer support to families who come to me, both heterosexual and homosexual, that they might nurture their families, that they might provide support, that they might contribute to a stable home life. Love includes things like wanting to have a pension that you can pass on. Love includes wanting to provide a stable home for your children so that they can grow up and feel loved and nurtured. These parents face hostility for their children because they are not able to be joined in marriage like other parents are. These are very practical issues that I face on a daily basis in my pastoring to families.

I would just end with a memory of before I was even able to offer a ceremony from the church. In 1979 I sat with Bob and Michael as they made a commitment as best they could. A legal relationship was not possible for them. That was 1979, and now, 23 years later, they are still together. They are a family. They support one another. Their love has endured.

People like them would like to have the legal support of the state. Let churches and synagogues and other faith groups decide whether they want to support that. Both I as a Unitarian minister and my faith community do want to offer the support, and we would like the government to offer legal protections.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'm going to go to Mr. Lee for three minutes.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): Thank you.

Again, it's a wonderful panel, a fascinating question. We're really getting a close look at our society.

With Ms. Sage's answer, one of the questions I'm not going to ask her is whatever happened to the men in those two relationships?

Anyway, that takes me to the issue I want to raise with Ms. Young. The legal allegation from gays and lesbians is that there is adverse-effect discrimination in the way we define marriage now. If that adverse-effect discrimination is to continue, we're going to have to find a way to demonstrably justify the limitation of their alleged rights...well, it is a right. They have a right not to be discriminated against.

Some of the demonstrable justification might be contained in what you, Mr. Nathanson, and others have told us here today. Would you try to help me develop an argument that is anthropologically based that says our definition of marriage has always provided a berth, a place for men and women in the family? In the absence of that type of berth, we might have evolved--I'm not saying we're going to--a little bit like the elephants, where the males show up when needed, otherwise, they're off on their own, or like the wolf packs. And I don't know whether the lions do the same thing...but the men are not built into the units.

Ms. Sage's evidence has just given us an example of the females gathering together without the males, so I'm looking for you to articulate, if you can, something anthropologically based that would allow a lawyer down the street or in the House, around this table, to articulate some sense of that anthropological justification.

The Chair: I have to say, as a New Brunswicker, I admire the educational system in Scarborough.

Ms. Young.

Prof. Katherine Young: When we look at marriage we can look at it from the perspective of women, children, or men. It does something different depending on the lens we're using going into that tripartite relationship.

Now, if we start to decouple men from this process, men are already on the marginal side of family life in the sense that you can get a new generation with a teaspoon of sperm. Culture has always been used to enhance male identity in family life and to encourage that bonding.

I don't know what kind of society we'd get if we took the majority of men, the heterosexual men, and got them out of this life process altogether. What does that group then do? They're no longer looking toward the future. Do they become the death-oriented group? Do they become a separate, polarized group? Do they become antagonistic to women and children? There are all sorts of things that could happen if we go down that route.

So as we move toward gay marriage, new reproductive technologies come very much into view, and it's much easier for women to simply utilize sperm banks. If we were to provide reproductive equality for men in some new societal scenario, then we would have to argue for the legality of surrogacy, which most women have opposed quite strongly, and probably the government would go against. We may have to argue for ex-utero pregnancies, which feminists have really argued against. But that's the only way you could equalize this difference between male and female bodies.

If we don't go that route or we keep it to the exception rather than the norm, then we're back to this need to use culture to bring men and women together in some intimate and enduring basis, and it's in that intimacy that a lot of heterosexual culture is passed on. It's passed on by example in family life. It's passed on by teaching. It's passed on by the norms that are encoded in religions and religious communities, and so forth. So something really serious could happen with that.

Something very serious can happen with children. And we want to keep children on this map, because if you look at the judgments in the court cases and if you look at many of the briefs, children are almost never mentioned. This has become an adult issue with adult rights.

À (1040)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'm going to Ms. Ablonczy for three minutes.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: It does trouble me that we can move in social policy to suggesting that men and women are somehow interchangeable and that we have nothing unique to contribute to family life and to child rearing. I wonder if you could tell me from your studies, Ms. Young, whether that is something we should be troubled about as we move to examine the institution of marriage. Again, what do you see from your studies, or foresee, could be the result of that on our children and on the way they interact as parents down the road? Does it make any difference if both parents are male or if both parents are female? Does it have implications?

Reverend Roberts suggested this could be a type of population control, I guess, but we're in a country.... I sit on the immigration committee, where we're desperately seeking immigrants to Canada because we're concerned about the falling birth rate, so I don't think this would be a healthy move for our society in an economically competitive global arena. I just wonder if you could give us a sense of where we might be heading here.

Prof. Katherine Young: One of the things Paul and I argue about is whether one or two females can give a male child an identity and whether one or two men, whether they're single parents or gay couples, can give a female child a female identity. We argue that you need parents of both sexes in order to ensure that whichever child is born is going to have a model of identity there. There are other reasons for two parents, but that's a very, very basic one.

Also, it's much more difficult for male children to bring their identity, when they're usually brought up by females in early life, over to male identity, a healthy male identity. That's a very complex feature of heterosexual culture, one that takes a great deal of thinking and cultural work.

We do know that young boys are getting into serious trouble. This may be one of our big issues over the next couple of decades as well, with our high dropout rate of boys from school and our high suicide rate among men. These are issues that are looming on the horizon.

I think we do have a population issue in Canada--it's not just about global population--because we do have a demography that's declining; we either need a higher birth rate or we need immigrants. If we take away the culture of heterosexuality, we can't support the immigrants who come in. They will initially have higher birth rates, but they need support of cultures to keep that system going. Otherwise, with each generation we have to ask for new immigrants to replace the population, and it goes on ad infinitum.

À (1045)

The Chair: Ms. Roberts wants to respond.

Rev. Meg Roberts: It's important that what I'm talking about here is not getting rid of heterosexual culture; it's recognizing diversity. If I understand correctly--or this is how I've interpreted it--you're saying that same-sex parents can't give gender identity, that if there were two women, they couldn't give gender identity to a son. Well, our gender identities are formulated within our culture; we get gender identities from friends of the couple, from television, etc., so that isn't a convincing argument for me.

I also want to come back to the population issue. What I was trying to say when I was talking about overpopulation was that I don't think the ideal for marriage is now about being able to reproduce. I think it's a gift and a desire amongst some people, so I wasn't trying to say we're going to use same-sex marriages to keep population down. I meant it as saying, what are our ideals of marriage now? In my opinion, our ideals of marriage now are not that it's just about the reproductive cycle.

The Chair: John McKay.

Mr. John McKay: Thank you.

I believe Professor Young indicated that possibly Reverend Roberts has not understood the point. In your response to me, talk about the gender identity point, because I don't think the two are on the same page on that point.

What I wanted to talk about was this. We had Reverend Hawkes before us yesterday. In his presentation he argued essentially that this is not a debate between the lesbian and gay community and people of faith or among different religious beliefs. He holds that the common-law rule against same-sex marriage--I think he was referring to Hyde--is a remnant of the state enforcement of traditional Christian theology, something that has no place in the 21st century. He argues over the course of his paper that it's particularly conservative Christians who are imposing their values, that it's only continuing support for one religious view, and that it's coercing one group to accept the religious practices of another.

Then he gets into some more anthropological argument, that really the Scarborough educational system is quite superior and that in times prior to the arrival of Europeans in this country, the Ojibwa--he uses the example of the Ojibwa--allowed multiple spouses and same-sex spouses, etc.

I'd be interested in your response on both of those issues, on whether this is simply a matter of religious dominance within our culture, and similarly on the issue of gender identity, on which I think we need a response.

The Chair: Ms. Young.

Prof. Katherine Young: Our research is based on looking at all the major world religions. When I talk about universal features, it is from looking at Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. It's also using the research on small-scale societies, especially the work of Suzanne Frayser, who did one of the major studies that comes close to our interests here, using 62 societies from different parts of the world to check for variables. These universal features I discussed come out of that comparative research, so there's no way that this is privileging Christianity. In point of fact, it's looking right across both the world religions and the small-scale religions.

When we look at small-scale societies, though, there are some differences there. That's why in the universal features I was very careful to talk about bonding in terms of maleness and femaleness. Sometimes after the birth of a child it's not always the relationship of the biological mother and father. The group may take over, but they have very intricate means of defining male identity and relationship of boys into that, and they as a group take care of some of the rest. Those societies, incidentally, are not the ones that are most analogous to ours, which are the large-scale societies. Then we go for durability, the cultures that support that, the biological identity, and using culture to get to that permanence.

You have to really know your world religions and you really have to have good comparative methodologies to get this view of universals. It's important to do that because it can correct for any kind of myopic view that comes out of a Christian background, which has been dominant in many western societies. You get that view with that method.

Here's one last thing. In my affidavit, which is now in the parliamentary library, I go through each one of the universal and nearly universal features and the variables, and I demonstrate this according to each one of those religions, so you can see it goes straight across.

À (1050)

The Chair: Thank you.

Monsieur Marceau.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Unfortunately, I'm going to ask you to answer with a yes, or a no, because my time is running short. You state the following on page 8 of your brief:

[English]

the argument for gay marriage is based on the notion of human rights; it rejects what advocates consider unwarranted discrimination. In that context, however, exemptions would make no moral sense at all. ...no religious community would be able to withstand the charge of violating human rights by refusing to solemnize gay marriages.

[Translation]

I have two questions for you. You're Jewish, Dr. Nathanson. Have there been cases where the courts have forced an Orthodox Rabbi to marry a Jew and a gentile? Have there been instances where the courts have forced the Catholic church to ordain women?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: Not yet.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I respectfully submit that since the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, this has never happened, or could ever happen because of freedom of religion.

You also state the following on the same page:

[English]

Unlike murder, gay relationships are not inherently evil. Even so, the state has no obvious or compelling reason to promote them.

[Translation]

Does the State have reason to discourage such unions?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: No.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: You note the following on page 9:

[English]

For one thing, it could split the gay movement. Not all gay people want to marry after all.

[Translation]

Given that not all heterosexuals want to get married, is this reason enough to say that heterosexual marriages should not be allowed?

[English]

Dr. Paul Nathanson: No.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Thank you. I have nothing further.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Rushfeldt.

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt: I would like to respond to the issue of whether there has been a case yet on clergy being forced to or being ordered to conduct marriages against the wishes or the conduct of a particular religion. The answer obviously is no, but I think we have cases certainly in very recent history in this nation where the ignoring of religious freedom has certainly been present.

We have had a case very recently in Saskatchewan, as you're probably aware, with Hugh Owens, in which his use of scripture along with a symbol that was reinterpreted by the judge--it has never meant what the judge said it meant--was clearly used to override religious freedom. I don't think the question is whether we have had a case or not. I think the question is, will we have? I believe we will. We can put a policy or a clause in place in new law. We have clauses in place, and I suggest to you that Bill C-250 is an example where there may be a clause that sets up a two-tiered justice system, because I would be able to say one thing and somebody who is not a Christian or not a religious person would not be able to say that. I don't think that's where we want to go in a tolerant and diverse nation--to start setting up people against each other.

À (1055)

The Chair: Let Monsieur Marceau have one short question, and then I recognize Ms. Roberts.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I think it's important that I say a few words about the symbol you mentioned and how it was interpreted. You say the judge erred in his interpretation. The symbol was a large X over the image of two persons. Do you not think that a young man or young woman might interpret this as a call to eradicate homosexuals? Was there only one possible interpretation of this symbol? This is not a case of religious freedom because there were some scriptural references. However, the symbol was very explicit and could be interpreted as a denouncement of homosexuals.

Mr. Rushfeldt.

[English]

Mr. Brian Rushfeldt: I'm not sure we understand the symbol in the same way, because what I saw was not an X. It was a circle--a no smoking circle. If you drive down the street, there are no parking zones, no smoking zones. It simply does not mean eradicate the people who might want to park there or might want to smoke. It says this is not something that is approved for this particular area.

The symbolism is a whole different issue. If you read that decision--the judge's comments on the scriptural references themselves--there was also an indication there that the scriptural issue was also part of the problem. I'm just suggesting since that's where one judge has gone, what would there be to prevent other judges from going in that same direction?

The Chair: On that point, we've had reference to this case a number of times. I'm going to ask Phil to get a copy of the decision, so we can all read it and make our own judgment as to what it means.

I'm now going to Ms. Roberts, and then there was another hand, Mr. Nathanson. Then if we have any time left...I see more hands. Okay, I'm going to Ms. Roberts.

Rev. Meg Roberts: As a minister in a religious movement that advocates for freedom of religious expression, I firmly support other clergy making their own decisions as to whether they want to officiate at same-sex marriages. But I believe that for those of us who do support it, it needs to be there as an option. I recognize as well that there is a possibility that this may go to a court situation, but because the charter does affirm freedom of religious belief, plus freedom of rights for sexual orientation, then I think it's important that we say yes to same-sex marriage and also yes to religious organizations in making their decision. I will gladly engage with my Catholic friends that they have the right for freedom of religious expression not to officiate at those weddings. I would gladly engage with them over the rights of same-sex people to further that dialogue to see what may be possible.

The Chair: I recognize Mr. Nathanson.

Dr. Paul Nathanson: To get back to Mr. Marceau's question--it's hard to think fast enough in these situations--in the past, and even today I suppose to some extent, people have respected the notion of freedom of religion. The problem is there's a whole other body of international law, which goes under the general name of human rights, and there is a potential conflict between those principles. There are things that religions do, which would not meet the standard of human rights legislation that is being urged upon us by the United Nations, for example. And there certainly are practices of religion that are outlawed. We don't allow every religious practice, even now.

Your question is a good one, but I think we should all be realistic and take into account the fact that the coming--and even to some extent already existing--conflict between principles such as religious freedom and human rights is a real problem, and we need to take that seriously and not just assume, oh yes, religion is fine. There could be problems, and it's worth taking seriously.

Á (1100)

The Chair: Final word to Ms. Sage.

Rev. Kathy Sage: It's a privilege to be here and to know that this body is taking so seriously the concerns of gays and lesbians, who are a part of Canadian culture. I'd invite you to remember that it's not just the small percentage of gays and lesbians who are looking at this issue.

When I look out on a Sunday morning, I look out at parents of gays and lesbians who ache and are concerned because their children do not have the same rights as some other citizens. I look out at brothers and sisters of gays and lesbians, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. It's a small portion of our country that wants to have the right of marriage extended, but it concerns so many of us.

I also hope you will find your way into those settings such as I experience on a regular basis, where there is an intermingling of heterosexuals who affirm and support and nurture children of gays and lesbians, who are supporting one another, and who are a part of respect and dignity. Please extend those benefits to those persons who wish to exercise marriage.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you to the panel. I thank the members of the committee.

We'll find out about travel at one o'clock today, and everyone will know tomorrow for the purposes of planning.

The meeting is adjourned.