For better or worse: It is simply the right thing to do

The issue of gay marriage has been with us for the better part of two decades. The first use of the term in a Canadian newspaper that I can find was in 1988, when reports surfaced that some United Church ministers were secretly performing homosexual “weddings,” quotation marks and all. The following year Denmark became the first country to legalize civil unions between people of the same sex, while various jurisdictions, in Canada and abroad, began to take up the issue of spousal benefits for gay couples. We have been talking about it ever since.

So no one can say the issue has not been debated, or that Bill C-38, recognizing gay marriages as legal across Canada, has somehow been sprung on the public without warning. The legislation has been in the works for more than two years, since which time the principle has been the subject of a federal election, a Supreme Court reference, and half a dozen provincial court decisions, all of them favourable. Scores of witnesses have testified in committee. Countless hours have been devoted to it in Parliament. The op-ed pieces have been published, the talk-show panels have been convened, the rallies have been held. And now it’s done. Gay marriage, already law by jurisprudence, is now on the statute books, probably irrevocably. Thank heavens it's also the right thing to do.

All the same, we might pause to consider what we’ve done. Canada is just the third country in the world, after Belgium and the Netherlands, to go so far as to allow gays to marry, in the full legal and symbolic sense of the word. It has, in so doing, flouted the teachings of every one of the world’s great religions, not to mention the deep misgivings of a substantial portion of the population. It may be the right thing to do, but it is also a radical step, and a divisive one, and if we are honest we will admit that none of us can predict the consequences with any certainty. We are tinkering with a vital social bulwark, and the critics are right to ask what the effects will be, on marriage and society.

Are they also right in their answers? I don’t think so. Two scenarios seem to me the most likely, both of them broadly neutral or even positive for the institution of marriage. One is the eventual normalization of homosexual relationships -- normalization, both in the sense that gay relationships will be accorded the same legal status, and as important social status, as heterosexuals, and in the sense that more gays might walk through the door thus opened to embrace mainstream conventions of monogamy and sexual restraint. A glimpse of this future might be seen in Toronto’s annual gay pride parade: as the event has grown, both in numbers and in stature, it has also become less raunchy (much to the disappointment of some).

The other possible scenario is that nothing much will happen: that gays, having acquired the right to marry in principle, may decline to do so in practice, or not in such great numbers that anyone would notice. There aren’t that many practising homosexuals to begin with -- between one and three percent of the population -- and even fewer in committed relationships. The last census found just 34,000 gay couples living common-law across the country. After the first rush of enthusiasm, it is possible the number of gay marriages performed each year will settle down into the low hundreds, and we will wonder what all the fuss was about.

The model here might be Gwen Jacob. Remember her? She was the Ontario woman who went to court some years back for the right to take off her top in public. She won her case, and made her point: that it was discriminatory to forbid to women what was permitted to men. Yet there has been no noticeable increase in the number of bare-breasted women parading Toronto’s streets (much to the disappointment of some).

The scenario that seems to me least likely is that sketched out by the critics: of the swift decline of marriage, possibly accompanied by the rise of polygamy, incest and worse. No evidence has ever been produced to support these claims, nor would reasoned argument suggest their likelihood. There is nothing in a broadened definition of monogamy -- as two persons, rather than two persons of the opposite sex -- that requires us also to endorse polygamy, whether in logic, law or morals. These oblige us to forswear, not discrimination -- for that is another word for judgment -- but unreasonable discrimination.

The onus, however, is always on the state to show that it is reasonable. Some might say: Why take the risk of legalizing gay marriage if you cannot be absolutely sure of the consequences? But that is to overlook the continuing injustice embedded in the status quo -- the deep insult to gays and to gay relationships implied by their exclusion from the institution of marriage, even if they are otherwise accorded the same rights and privileges, as in the Conservatives’ proposed civil unions. (So gays are litigating for the right to a word? Fine: why is it so important to you to deny it to them?) Such discrimination might be justified in the name of preserving marriage from harm, as it surely could be in the case of polygamy. But in either case that has to be shown. We should not fear this. There is nothing to fear in a requirement that our laws have some reasonable basis to them.

If at any time in the last twenty years the opponents of gay marriage had presented a single reasoned argument explaining just how the admission of a few hundred homosexuals into lawful matrimony each year -- committed, loving couples whose most fervent desire is to live together as one for the rests of their lives, and to be honoured for that choice -- would bring the whole thing crashing down around our ears, if it were even slightly probable, the news today might have been very different. They have not.

If the institution has been weakened, it has been because of the elaborate efforts expended over the years to avoid this result. Not willing to let gays marry, but still not wishing to be seen to discriminate against gays, legislators squared the circle by erasing most of the legal distinctions between married and common-law relationships. Perhaps, once the first sting of defeat has worn off, social conservatives will accept a consolation prize: now that we have stopped discriminating against gays, we can get back to discriminating in favour of marriage.