Why Marriage Matters

by Sya Strydhorst,

Alberta President,

Christian Heritage Party of Canada

 

Charles Colson, in his BreakPoint commentary (06/13/2003) entitled Changing the Rules, says we're experiencing the legacy of the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s. Promiscuity and sexual experimentation had profound impact on our attitudes.

 

"The sexual revolution denied that sex was ordered to some higher and nobler end," he wrote. "Sex became a mere physical and biological act, an expression of our animal — not divine — nature. The old morality was dismissed as 'unnatural', and sex became recreation… (the) right to recreation will quite logically be a protected  'civil right'."

 

Prior to adjourning for the summer, the federal government promised to draft legislation to legalize gay and lesbian marriage. And it did, alas — one of the few promises this government has kept!

 

 Justice Committee hearings on the definition of marriage held throughout Canada were a waste of money and merely a patronizing placebo to appease the Canadian people, because legislators abrogated their responsibility by allowing court decisions to determine this proposed legislation. As Professor F.L. Morton expressed it: "[T]here are two Charters: the mythical Charter and the real-world Charter…  The myth is constitutional supremacy and the rule of law. The reality has become judicial supremacy and the rule of lawyers. This new jurocracy has given wealth to lawyers, power to judges and influence to a new breed of rights- advocate groups. Rather than be offended by their loss of power to the courts, many re-election-minded politicians have welcomed the development as a convenient way to avoid controversial issues."

 

Marriage is the legal, social, economic, and spiritual union of one man and one woman.  Heterosexual, monogamous marriage reflects the natural moral and social law evidenced the world over. Historically, any society that devalued the nuclear family ultimately destroyed its civilization. Analysing studies of cultures spanning several thousand years on several continents, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin found that virtually all political revolutions that brought about societal collapse were preceded by a sexual revolution in which marriage and family were devalued.

 

Society cannot be sustained with both the Judeo-Christian standard of sex within marriage and the Humanist value of sex outside of marriage, because they are mutually exclusive and incompatible.

 

When marriage loses its unique status, women and children most frequently are the victims. Giving same-sex relationships or out-of-wedlock heterosexual couples the same status and benefits as the marital bond would not be the expansion of a right, but the destruction of a principle. If the one man/one woman definition of marriage is broken, there is no logical stopping point for continued assault on marriage.

 

If feelings are the key requirement, then why not let three people marry, or two adults and a child, or consenting blood relations of any age?

 

The Supreme Court of the United States stated succinctly that marriage laws must be based on "the idea of the family, as consisting of and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy state of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization, the best guarantee of the reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement."

 

While courts and politicians talk about equal rights and anti-discrimination policies, homosexual activists reveal their true feelings about marriage. In a 1994 article of Out magazine, activist Michaelangelo Signorile urges his colleagues to “…fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution that as now stands to keep us down. The most subversive action lesbians and gay men can undertake — and one that would benefit all of society — is to transform the notion of 'family' entirely."

 

Do these sound like words of people who just want to be left alone?

 

In the face of such determination to alter the very core of society, the effort to protect marriage takes on greater importance and urgency.

 

Sadly, our government has failed to protect the time-honoured moral, and social institution of marriage, and history shows this will lead to the demise of its society.

 

Where do we go from here? Will the Christian churches rise up and proclaim the Word of our Creator God and Heavenly Father who has said "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

 

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