Canadians for Equal Marriage

Religious Studies professor argues in support of equal marriage

The Place of Churches in the Same-Sex Marriage Debate: A few things you might not have heard

by
Pamela Dickey Young
Queen's University
Head, Department of Religious Studies
April 21, 2005

paper delivered at Parliament Hill breakfast
sponsored by Canadians Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
www.fedcan.ca

Professor Dickey Young makes three main points:

1. MARRIAGE IS NOT INHERENTLY RELIGIOUS. Church officials did not become centrally involved in marriages until the Middle Ages. Marriage is a socially constructed relationship that varies over time and geography. Further, when officials of churches and other religious traditions perform legal marriages in Canada, they are not just acting as religious officials, they are acting as functionaries of the province or territory in which they are licensed to marry.

2. SEX IS THE PROBLEM. What I mean here is that specific views of sexuality and male-female relationships are often at the root of attitudes to same-sex marriage. In other words, Christianity has traditionally valued sex primarily for procreation and as a control for lust. It is difficult to value same-sex relationships if sexuality is not seen as good in and of itself. In Canada since the 1960s we have been progressively rethinking marriage as a partnership of equals, a partnership which may, but does not necessarily, include children.

3. WILL FREEDOM OF RELIGION BE VIOLATED IF BILL C-38 PASSES? First, in whatever way it applies, freedom of religion applies to positions on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate. Second, when does a worry about freedom of religion become a lament for an earlier age in which Christianity had a privileged place in the public policy sphere?

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