By ERNIE NEUFELD, Weyburn Review Associate Publisher
"Is marriage on the way out?"
The question - presumably rhetorical - in large italic type, was not written by a cynic challenging concepts and ideals absorbed at mother's knee and questioned through exposure to the harsh and evil realities of life.
No indeed. They were written for publication on the Review's editorial page as part of an assessment of the state of the Christian church, by one of a number of local clergymen expressing views on a subject they felt obliged to address. In particular, they were bothered by the reduced state of an centuries-old and honourable institution considered a cornerstone of most world religions.
That was just over 20 years ago. Read today by some innocent or cynic, the words might invite the conclusion that a sympathetic and impartial providence might finally be offering a simple solution. Business in the matrimonial area is terrible? There is a relief in sight: try same-sex marriages!
Without expecting anyone to change firmly-held beliefs in the matter, I do feel disposed to offer a few lead nuggets of opinion that question this new wave, more seriously offered than in the previous paragraph.
First of all, I question the authority of any court to render a decision negating an ancient, legally supported institution, on the basis of a fairly recently enacted Charter of Rights that did not specifically address the question. I wonder if the Privy Council of Great Britain would dare overturn a legal position held for centuries though having no more to support it than common usage.
Common sense alone, I dare suppose, would dictate that the matter deserved full and lengthy public and political debate. It took a lot more than a court decision, to give females the vote. Other examples abound.
Some churches, too, have taken a strong position sympathetic to and in step with a court decision, while never having dared to take the same position on the basis of religious tenets or the question of right or wrong.
Then there is the ruling that disallowing same-sex marriages is discriminatory. How so? A heterosexual would not have been allowed to marry anyone of the same sex short years ago even if wishing to do so because it seemed economically or socially useful to do so. Conversely, the homosexual was never denied the right anyone else had to marry someone of the opposite sex. Thousands have done so over the years, and even if they had loudly proclaimed their sexual preferences, their marriage would not have been voided.
Personally, I also take exception to the much-voiced charge that same-sex unions are mainly opposed by old fogies who must be living in a medieval mental prison.
Young as I may feel (and immodestly suppose myself to appear), I am a few years beyond the biblical (pardon the expression) ration of life expectancy; therefore feel privileged to voice at least an opinion. It is this: I doubt there has ever been a generation in the history of this old world that has experienced, accepted or welcomed as many changes affecting every facet of life.
Finally, I offer a word of advice from a mundane source sometimes capable of wisdom. When I was young, and the word "liberal" was not booted around so, ummm, liberally, we liked to label every rejection of accepted social mores with which we disagreed, or which did not satisfy our fancies, as "broad-mindedness."
In an idle moment one day I chanced to be leafing through a copy of Reader's Digest, and my eye caught one of its ubiquitous Confucian footnotes or fillers: "Broadmindedness often is no more than a stretching of the conscience." I recall that in spite of my teen-age omnipotence, I experienced a slight (if quickly dismissed) pang of guilt.
I cannot proudly state that I mended my ways on the spot. But
I never forgot those words and have thought of them frequently.
The same shading may apply to some of today's liberalisms.
Box 400, 904 East Avenue
Weyburn, SK
S4H 2K4
Phone: (306) 842-7487
Fax: (306) 842-0282
E-mail: production@weyburnreview.com
This web page and its contents are copyright of the Weyburn
Review (1987) Ltd.
