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PERSONAL OPINION
Bill C-23 – A historic challenge

John H. Redekop

The recent enactment of Bill C-23 by the Canadian Parliament marks a historic challenge to the values upon which Canadian society has been built. Titled the “Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act”, this deplorable legislation seems poised to produce consequences which this country will deeply regret.

The bulk of the act consists of amendments to 68 Canadian statutes ranging from the Income Tax Act to the Pension Act. As the summary states, the intent is to “provide that the benefits or obligations in relation to a husband and wife” shall also apply “to all [italics in the original] couples who have been cohabiting in a conjugal relationship for at least one year, in order to reflect the values of tolerance, respect and equality. . . .” In other words, C-23 grants homosexual couples virtually all of the benefits and privileges currently enjoyed by heterosexual couples.

Is there a problem to be addressed? Yes, but, unfortunately, this ill-conceived legislation does not address it very well. In fact, even from a secular perspective, it creates more problems than it solves. The problem to be overcome has two components. First, homosexuals have at times been teased, ridiculed and harassed – or worse – even by some Christians, simply for being homosexual; this harassment is wrong and must not be tolerated. Second, homosexuals are taxpaying citizens and should not be penalized financially for their sexual lifestyle; this injustice must be eliminated.

My objection to C-23 is fourfold. First, this legislation extends rights and obligations on the basis of conjugality, sexual intimacy. That’s a new and very disturbing approach. Until C-23, rights and benefits were granted on the basis of marital status; the government didn’t concern itself with matters of sexual intimacy. Yes, if a marriage was not consummated, then a partner could request an annulment, but the government asked no questions and never took the initiative.

What constitutes a conjugal relationship? If a couple has sex once or a few times, are they in a conjugal relationship? Perhaps a bureaucrat will send out a form to be completed.

Why does C-23 emphasize sexual intimacy? Because many homosexuals pressed for it. They want their sex acts to be considered as appropriate and normal as heterosexual intimacy. They seek not only toleration but affirmation. The irony is, of course, that lesbian women are incapable of becoming one flesh, to use the King James idiom, and that for homosexual men the act is unnatural. It’s not the kind of act which you want to teach young boys as being appropriate. Significantly, all of the dictionaries I can find define conjugal relationships in terms of one woman and one man. The Canadian government has sought to change that definition.

My second criticism is that the one-year required cohabitation is too short. It is not a sufficient test of commitment given the absence of any formal, legal obligation. The long-standing three-year requirement for common law situations was more logical.

This policy will surely create many problems. Let me illustrate one category. In some provinces, divorce proceedings can begin only after a year of separation. Consider the case of a man who leaves his wife and cohabits with another man, a not unknown situation. After this first year or a little longer as a practising homosexual, he suddenly dies. Who is his spouse? Who shares the estate? Who gets the Canadian Pension Plan death benefit? According to Bill C-23, his homosexual partner could claim it on the basis of more than a year of conjugal cohabitation. His wife, now his widow, might get nothing. Or, if the man continues in his homosexual partnership but delays getting a divorce, who is his spouse in terms of the various kinds of benefits flowing from provincial and federal legislation? The complexities boggle the mind.

Third, I object to this legislation because it is insufficiently inclusive. In an age of the welfare state, I affirm the government’s desire to redistribute economic benefits fairly. The government could have acknowledged that a home may consist of various groupings of interdependent individuals who do not constitute traditional families and which at present tend to be shortchanged. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has long argued that such groupings should be called households. The requirement would be to have a continuing and interdependent social and economic relationship. Examples of such adult arrangements include a retired parent and a child, two or more single siblings, two very close friends, and, of course, homosexual couples. By ignoring the aspect of economic interdependency and by focusing only on sexual intimacy, C-23 perpetuates the injustice except for homosexual couples.

Here, again, the Liberal government thinking defies logic. If two adult women decide to set up house together as very close friends, a not uncommon arrangement, especially among seniors, they do not get the benefits. But if they adopt a lesbian relationship, then they do. It is this discrimination on the basis of sex which may yet be the undoing of this ridiculous piece of legislation. After all, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms states, in Section 15. (1), that there shall be no discrimination based on sex.

My fourth criticism focuses on the failure to uphold and promote traditional marriage as unique, and the failure to face the serious negative consequences. For example, a Statistics Canada report states that 14% of married couples having children break up within 10 years. For common-law couples, the rate is 63%. As non-married couples, including homosexual couples (and some of them do have children), become ever more numerous as they surely will, given governmental affirmation, society will become increasingly burdened, financially and otherwise, to care for children and jettisoned partners. The foundation of our society is being eroded.

Granted, in recent years our courts have pressured politicians to ensure greater justice, but they have focused almost entirely on economic matters. In the famous case of Egan and Nesbitt v. Canada (1995), which dealt with accepting a homosexual liaison as marriage, the Supreme Court of Canada stated that “viewed in the larger context, then, there is nothing arbitrary about the distinction supportive of heterosexual family units. – It warrants support by Parliament to meet its needs.”

In trying to placate its many critics and a large number of its own backbenchers, the Liberal government inserted a section into C-23 which said: “For greater certainty, the amendments made by this Act do not affect the meaning of the word ‘marriage’, that is, the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.” The words ring hollow. Having granted functional equality, the government will doubtless soon be pressured by homosexual spokespersons to acknowledge that fact and to label homosexual liaisons as marriage. Having yielded on the substance, the government will be hard pressed not to yield on the designation.

Why has the Canadian government embarked on such folly? Various reasons come to mind: the failure to understand the significance of marriage and the family as bulwarks of society; the widening acceptance of sin as simply a personal choice; the failure to comprehend the role of religion, especially the Judeo-Christian ethic, in undergirding a free society; the endorsement of C-23 by most mainline Christian spokespersons in Canada; and, perhaps most importantly, a false understanding of toleration and justice. One does not have to affirm or endorse that which one tolerates.

For this misguided initiative, Canadian society will pay a high price.

John H. Redekop is on the faculty of Trinity Western University and is a member of Bakerview MB Church in Abbotsford, B.C.

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Last modified May 17, 2000.

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