CKNW Editorial
for April 18, 2000

I continue to get considerable mail on the issue of the Canadian Alternative and homosexuality and the underlying question seems to be that I’m against Christian principles. As with most things, the devil is in the details.

There is no question but that our laws often reflect religious beliefs of the past – that’s a given. The fact remains, however, that our society is a secular one.

Let’s start with this difficulty – if we were all to agree that laws should be based upon Christian principles, who makes the Ayotollah like decision as to what qualifies and what doesn’t?

For example – would we go back to the strictest Christian’s interpretation of marriage and ban all divorces for whatever reason? Or, on the other hand, do we have a state law that concerns itself with the state’s interest and leave the rest to religion in the sense that they can have their own rules and apply their own penalties, such as excommunication?

The Lord said to keep the Sabbath holy. Should a politician professing adherence to Christian principles legislate, regardless of the public temper, towards closing Sunday down as it once was because of some interpretations by some Christians that the day must be kept holy? And that’s actually a pretty good example since if there is one thing common to most Christians it’s that the Sabbath is a day of rest – even though some Christians say that should be Saturday.

But perhaps an even better question is this – if we are to insist that legislators govern according to religious principles, why Christian? The country is not officially Christian and I daresay that the vast majority professing Christianity haven’t been near the practice of their faith in years. But why not Jewish, indeed Orthodox Jewish principles? Why not those of fundamental Islam? Or Buddhism? What singles fundamentalist Christianity out as the arbiter of public morality?

The answer cannot be that we’re a Christian country because we’re not and wouldn’t be even if everyone us went to a Christian church every Sunday. That’s because we’re not a theocracy.

Where is this all leading?

Back to the moral questions the Canadian Alliance can’t help putting before the people just before they run for cover saying that they believe in the separation of Church and State.

The issue of homosexualism is a big one today but not as to its legality. We long ago agreed that homosexuality was not a secular crime and went so far as to protect the right of adult, consenting homosexuals, bisexuals and heterosexuals to do as they pleased. It’s a big issue because governments, rightly or wrongly, have decided that whether or nor homosexual couples receive "entitlements" was open for debate.

Originally, the state had no right to interfere with private matters, leaving marriage and divorce to the church. Gradually, for a great many reasons, governments decided that marriage should be a secular institution as well and began making rules about it for two reasons, principally – there was a state interest in propagating the nation and the stability of the family unit doing that. This state involvement came when society only approved of one form of coupling – marriage. But it was not the sanctity of marriage that interested the state – that was for the church. Stability and procreation were the state’s motives.

Now we all recognize other forms of family units the principal of which is the homosexual union, exist. Since the issue is not a religious one, but stability, the state must ask what is fair. After all, once we got past family allowances and got to pensions for widows and widowers the question of procreation was no longer a distinguishing feature of the state’s relationship with couples.

Now we have reached this critical decision – do we extend benefits for couples to relationships not involving heterosexual couplings? If the question is yes, upon what will we base that decision?

The Canadian Alliance, through at least two of its major candidates for leader, clearly sees this as a moral question. So does Alliance MP Reed Elley who traces homosexuality’s roots to Pierre Trudeau and the rise of feminism.

Is this what we want the decision making process of the country to become? An analysis of problems in the light of what some people’s views of God are, as set out in the Book of Leviticus? Is the presence or absence of a government entitlement to be based not upon whether it is fair or in society’s interest but whether or not the proposed recipients are behaving morally according to the lights of fundamentalist Christians?

Can we depend upon the Canadian Alliance to maintain a distinction between what is good for the state and what they believe to be God’s will?

John F Kennedy was faced with the same question when he sought election as the first Catholic president in light of the fact that his spiritual leader was a foreigner and leader of a foreign state to boot. He answered unequivocally that his public duty was to the Constitution of the United States.

I do not begrudge Stockwell Day, Preston Manning and Reed Elley their views – I simply say that if their exercise of public duty will be in response to their church, however much they may tart up their decision with appropriate language, I’ll take someone else.

Let me close with this – I am a pro-lifer. I believe that abortion in all but a handful of cases is immoral. I believe that those who procure or have abortions will have to answer to their God. But on this earth they answer to the state. If it’s the will of the people, through the state, that unlimited abortions should be permitted, then so be it very much subject to my right to try to get my fellow citizens to change their mind.

If men like Mr Manning, Mr Day or, heaven forbid, Mr Elley gain political power I very much fear that the state will be governed not by the will of the people – to whom they pay so much homage – but to the will of the people as tempered by the tenets of Christian fundamentalism.

It is one thing, and perhaps a good thing, to be governed by a religious person. It’s quite another thing and a bad thing to be governed by a person’s religion.