Sunday, May 14, 2006

Mangled Terminology

In the last number of years, the political landscape of Canada has been thoroughly abused by the adoption of catch-phrase terminology - little pithy phrases that are adopted to encapsulate the positions that people are taking.

"Pro-Life" - largely anti abortion, and more recently, anti-contraception as well

"Pro-Choice" - pro abortion access, and sex education

"Pro-Family" - this has become the watchword of the anti-gay rights crowd, as well as the anti-sex ed groups.

After reading Alberta Legislature Bill 208 written by Ted "Family Values" Morton this past week, I have found myself contemplating just what "pro family" really means.

The phrase itself is essentially meaningless in any real sense. I don't know anyone that is openly hostile to the notion of 'family' in any practical sense. Certainly, I don't see anyone running around saying that families shouldn't exist, nor should they be allowed to. So, just what is "pro family" actually about?

Well, for a start, let's take a look at what Ted Morton says, shall we?

Assertion #1:

The public consecration of marriage is based on an enduring social fact: children need both a mother and a father if they are to enjoy the best opportunity to prosper. It is the nurturing of children that has been the purpose of the family and the laws of marriage.


There's enough assumptions in here to sink a battle ship:

1) The assumption that both parents are required when raising children has been proven time and again to be suspect. There are practical reasons why this is a good idea, but the assertions around "prospering" (whatever that happens to mean in this context) are not borne out - there are always plenty of children raised in single-parent homes, or situations where work takes one parent to another country for extended periods of time - there's no significant evidence that the long term outcomes for those children are any different than others. The economic challenges of raising a child in a single parent household are significant, and there is a demonstrated link between poverty and social/economic adjustment (of course, Morton wouldn't know poverty if it bit him on the nose)

2) The laws of marriage (at least in Canada) have nothing to do with raising children. Zero. Zip. Nada. Look in the statutes, and tell me where there is one word in the marriage laws of this land that make any such assertion. The legal definition of marriage (secular, not its religious counterpart) speaks to the legal entity that is created, and how the participants in that entity are seen with respect to the government. No more, no less.

Second Assertion:

Despite overwhelming empirical evidence from the social sciences on the importance of marriage and the family, the federal Liberals have passed policy after policy weakening both. The most recent and notorious is Bill C-38, Paul Martin’s Same-Sex Marriage law.


Ah - now we start to come to the point - it's about bill C-38 - the Same Sex Marriage amendment. I have yet to figure out how any two people getting married affects anyone else's marriage. I know straight couples that are happily married, and not raising any children whatsoever by choice, and lesbian couples that are married and raising children - just fine, thank you very much. Has anyone's world stopped as a result? No. So I fail to see how one can argue that Bill C-38 "weakened" either the notion of marriage, or the notion of family.

Second, I'd love to know what this "overwhelming empirical evidence" is. I have yet to see a paper which suggests that single parent families, gay parented families are any worse off than "traditional" families - outside of the stigma and discrimination that the parents may encounter under a variety of circumstances.

Third Assertion:

We can and must enact an Alberta Marriage Bill of Rights that protects the freedoms of speech, association, religion and conscience of the large majority of Albertans who disagree with same-sex marriage. This Bill of Rights would also extend protection to students, parents and teachers in public, separate and private schools to ensure no Albertan is forced to promote or teach any aspects of the same-sex agenda.


Well, this is pretty much what Morton put before the legislature this last session. It's not about protecting anyone's rights - it's about creating a right for someone to be a bigot and treat others as lesser citizens.

Of course, Morton pulls out the mythical "same-sex agenda" - which as far as I have ever been able to determine is no more an "agenda" than women's rights, racial equality or religious freedoms. (Admittedly, I've never actually found the mystical "Gay Agenda" documented anywhere - perhaps Mr. Morton has a copy he'd like to make available to enlighten the rest of us?)

If the "Pro-Family" crowd were intellectually honest, they'd simply say that they were "anti-gay rights" and be done with it. Instead, they stand on this soapbox and preach about how evil this or that behaviour is, and how it is "damaging" to the institution of family. Frankly, I've seen plenty of cases where the "traditional" institution of family is sufficiently dysfunctional that the result is far more damaging to any offspring than a non-traditional setting that was stable and loving would be.

The real question to ask these people is why they think it's "okay" to treat others as lesser citizens than themselves? What would they do if Ted Morton's bill had been about mixed-race marriage, or non-Christian marriage?

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