The Very Rev. Dr. Peter Short

As Bill C-38 passes through the House of Commons, it makes the passage from "moral issue" to law of the land. This is a surprising thing-not because we didn't expect the legislation to pass-but because, with its passage, the heart is surprised to find itself living in a new world.

As we learn to live with the heart's surprise, it will be good to think about our new civic morals. Actually, it will be good to distinguish between morals and conventions because marriage is a mystifying fabric of both these things. When we make that distinction thoughtfully, I suspect we will discover that our morals are not new at all, but our conventions have changed dramatically. Northrop Frye was right to say that the conventions amongst which you live may change, and often, but your morals will do you a lifetime.

In the biblical tradition, there may be no more deeply "moral" issue than the Sabbath. The seventh day, day of delight, doorway into the freedom and the rest of God-Sabbath is woven more deeply and more intimately into the fabric of the tradition than marriage is. The keeping of Sabbath is a commandment that requires rather than prohibits. Marriage is not required. I suspect that marriage presents itself to us as a moral issue because it is bound up with sexuality, and sex is bound to get our attention. Whether or not it merits so much of our attention is another question. In the Gospel According to Mark, Jesus says, "The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath."

If Jesus could say this of the deeply moral Sabbath, how much more might it be said of marriage? "Marriage was made for humankind, and not humankind for marriage." Said that way, the truly moral dimension of the question emerges into the light.

The question is not, "Which sexual orientations have the right to marriage?" The question is, "Who is a human being?" Who is the real, full, true human being for whom marriage is made?

Homosexuality has been variously named a disease, a crime, sin, an aberration, a distortion, an anomaly-and those are the polite words. Like any phenomenon appearing in a minority of the population (left-handedness comes to mind), homosexuality has been subject to a perceived need for correction. The Bible is not innocent of this anxiety and its bitter campaigns. In the Christian tradition to which I belong, the words of the Bible are judged by the Living Word whose life is given not for correction but for redemption; not for some but for all; not as a master but as a servant.

The moral issue here is not sex but love. Love is judged not by its object but by its own inner qualities; that is, love's faithfulness, kindness, patience, goodness, sacrifice, compassion, courtesy, and perseverance. The moral issue is our will to love one another. Beneath that moral issue lies the foundational demand to recognize the humanity of one another. The great enemy of truly moral love is not sex but fear.

As Canadians live into the surprising new world this legislation has opened to us, we may begin to see that our civic morality has not been cast aside; rather, it is deepening and maturing.

This article appeared in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday, June 29, 2005.