How "Same-sex Marriage" Changed the Definition of Marriage in Canada

In my last post I implied that the push for same-sex marriage is not something that homosexuals have pushed on society, but rather something that hard-core pro-promiscuity crusaders, aided and abetted by muddle-headed, post-Christian liberals, have pushed on society. Now I want to expand on that point in order to show that the nature of marriage has already been changed in Canada. We move beyond apocalyptic speculation about the future to a lament for what has already been lost.

Douglas Farrow, in his book, Nation of Bastards: Essays on the End of Marriage, writes:

The success of the drive for genderless marriage is dependent on heterosexual interests as much as on homosexual interests. Marriage is a discipline that sets itself inter alia against the sexual porclivities of all men and women, whatever their sexual orientation or appetite. (p. 57)

This is the point. Can we accept an institution that places limits on our bodily desires when we believe that there is no higher purpose to life than the maximal satisfaction of those bodily desires? Not without believing in the Christian doctrine of the human person as male and female created in the image of God with a rational mind and a will that can direct and discipline our bodily desires in such a way as to achieve the telos or end for which we have been created. It is the loss of the Christian understanding of the person, which itself is dependent on the Christian doctrine of creation and, ultimately, on the Christian doctrine of God, that is the problem here. Without God we are mere animals and animals do not marry.

Farrow points out that, in Bill C-38, which created by State diktat this new beast blasphemously named "same-sex marriage," we find the following definition of marriage:

"the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others." (Farrow, p. 19)

But the old common-law definition of marriage articulated in Hyde v. Hyde and Woodmansee (1866) was:

"the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others." (p. 15)

This was consistent with the definition in Roman jurisprudence as formulated by Modestinus in the third century:

Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, a consortium for the whole of life involving the communication of divine and human rights. (p. 15)

Christianity did not not invent monogamy. It inherited it from Judaism and it joined forces with Roman legal understandings to create the foundation of Western culture - the most successful and humane civilization in the history of the world so far and one that pro-promiscuity crusaders hate with a vengeance and wish to tear down.

You will notice what is missing from the new definition of marriage the Canadian State has attempted to impose arbitrarily on Canadian society: there is no reference to marriage being "life-long." And of course there is not, for life-long marriage makes no sense when procreation has been pushed to the periphery instead of being seen as the essence of marriage.

In Canada, "same-sex marriage," (so-called, for it is not real marriage no matter how many laws are passed in Parliament), has led to the redefinition of all marriage. Stop right there and reflect on that point. Those who claim in a beguiling manner, "But my 'same-sex marriage' won't affect your marriage at all," have been proven to be wrong. This always was just a ruse to muddy the waters.

Traditional marriage has been defined as being comprised of three goods: procreation, mutuality and faithfulness. With procreation marginalized and faithfulness seen as temporary at best and under suspicion, is the meaning of mutuality unchanged? No, it is not because the kind of "mutual help and comfort of husband and wife," as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer put it, is not longer a life-long covenant rooted in nature and directed toward parenting and grandparenting together. Instead it is a little more than a temporary contract for mutual sexual services that will last only as long as no alternative path promising greater individual fulfillment presents itself.

Yes, "same-sex marriage" has changed the definition of marriage in Canada. Or rather, to be more precise, it has codified in law the changes to marriage that have become widespread in our society as a result of the sexual revolution. They don't call it a "revolution" for nothing.