"Spouses" in B.C. (Bill 31).

Victoria -- British Columbia's NDP government has introduced Bill 31, "An Act to Amend the Family Relations Act," which will change the definition of "spouse" and "parent" to include "the marriage-like relationship between persons of the same gender." If this bill passes it will initiate similar changes to more than 500 statutes in British Columbia, and will ratchet up the pressure on Ottawa to change the definition of marriage for the entire country. Both the Liberals and the Reform Party have expressed general support for Bill 31.

The stated purpose of the amendments is to facilitate the collection of child support payments, so that children being raised by homosexual partners will not be left destitute in the event of an end to the relationship. But this ostensibly noble motive merely distracts from both social and biological reality. If our society had not acquiesced to moral and legal indifference toward the misuses of sexuality through which children end up in the care of homosexuals--egg and sperm donation, surrogate motherhood, utilitarian sexual relations, easy divorce, and fluid sexual identity--there would be no such thing as homosexual "parents," and no child's welfare would suffer when homosexuals part.

The biological fact in this: children can only be ceated by the union of male and female. The partners in this natural union have a lifelong responsibility for the life they have made. Whenever a homosexual couple is raising a child, somewhere there is a biological parent being "let off the hook."

Having misidentified the disease, Bill 31 is a remedy designed to treat a symptom. Its fallout, however, could be epidemic.

In a related matter, later this year the Supreme Court of Canada will be hearing an appeal of the "M and H" case, where a lesbian partner was granted spousal benefits in Ontario. Under the Rae government, Attorney General Marion Boyd chose not to appeal the judgement in "M and H" (and in fact endorsed it) despite the fact that as a precedent it could lead to a change in the definition of "spouse" in dozens of Ontario statutes, and a huge expense to employers should homosexual spousal benefits become a perceived "right." The Harris government is now going forward with the appeal of the "M and H" decision, to prevent its establishment as the norm. Groups supporting the traditional family will likely seek leave to intervene on the government side.