Liberal Government Wreaking Havoc on the Family

Something terrible is amiss in Ontario. Something jarring. Something that brings a sad, sick feeling to my stomach.

The Ontario Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne has passed a bill that erases the legal recognition of the unique role of a child’s mother and father.

Yes, you read that right. This is actually happening.

Bill 28, the interestingly titled the “All Families are Equal Act” removed the words “mother" and “father” and “natural parents” from Ontario statutes. It also muddied the waters of family law by removing references to blood relationships.

In other words, it just rewrote what it means to be a family, what it means to be someone’s son or daughter. It took the natural basis for family law and replaced it with the intentions of adults, adults who may in fact have no relation to the child they asset parenthood over. 

The government purported that it is in fact respectful of the diversity of families that exist today, I argue that it is in fact discriminatory. While the government says it works against discrimination against non-traditional parents, it actually discriminates against children, who have a natural right to their patrimony, their heritage, their mom and their dad.

It also discriminates against reality.

1. It discriminates against children

John Sikkema wrote a fine article in the National Post titled "Ontario’s new law will put children second to parenthood." And that it does. In this it discriminates against children. 

In ethicist Margaret Sommerville’s brief given to the Canadian government in 2003 before the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, she argued that the core reason it should not do so is that it is a violation of the rights of children. Children only come into this world through a (biological) mother and father. Children have a right to their mother and father.

She cautioned that changing the definition of marriage necessarily would lead to changing the definition of families, and that this was a serious thing.

"Through marriage our society marks out the relationship of two people who will together transmit human life to the next generation and nurture and protect that life. By institutionalizing the relationship that has the inherent capacity to transmit life that between a man and a woman marriage symbolizes and engenders respect for the transmission of human life."

She argued that redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships would necessarily "affect its cultural meaning and function and, in doing so, damage its ability and, thereby, society's capacity, to protect the inherently procreative relationship and the children who result from it."

And here we are today.

She is not writing from a religious perspective, but an intuitive, nature-based, ethical perspective. When we mess around with marriage, we mess around with society and the common good.

What the Wynne government is cleaving parenthood (motherhood and fatherhood) from its biological moors and grafting it according to the preferences and whims of adults.

This is deeply unfair, unjust and in fact discriminatory towards children. 

Bill 28 is deeply unfair, unjust and in fact discriminatory towards children.

Studies have shown decisively that children in fatherless homes struggle significantly when compared to those of intact families. Though often shouted down, some studies also indicate that children in homes with homosexual parents may also struggle more. 

How can we possibly assume that children given over to groups of adults (not just two parents- Bill 28 recognizes partnerships of 3 or even 4 adults assigning themselves as the child’s parents) is in the best interest of the child? What right do we have to orchestrate their lives as such that they must live according to these social experiments?

The answer is obvious: we have none.

2. It discriminates against reality

Bill 28 purports to correct a problem of homosexual parents having to “adopt their own children.” But why would this be so? Why would anyone have to adopt what is already theirs?

The answer harkens back to Sommerville’s brief; they have had to adopt because they are in fact someone else’s children. Every person comes into this world through the procreative relationship of a man and a woman, a mother and a father. Whether this is accomplished in its natural context (the "marital embrace," or sexual intercourse) or through morally-questionable artificial means, a child has the same patrimony- a mother and a father.

The language the Liberal government has used in this bill is biased and misleading- it has already assigning parenthood to someone with no biological connection to the child. This is what I mean when I say that the bill discriminates against not only children but against reality.

By removing the biological foundation of parenthood in our statutes, we place individualistic assertions against the common good. It’s wrong, and to me it is actually hard to believe that anyone would even propose it.

Why has the Wynne government proposed it? Already her approval rating is reaching historic depths unseen by previous premiers. Their borderline-criminal mismanagement of energy; their unpopular and activistic sex ed curriculum; now this?

We need strong families. St. John Paul II said "the future of humanity passes through the family." 

And an integral component of strong families is mom and dad. That isn't to say that other kinds of families don't exist. But to redirect our legal statutes away from the natural family unit is a disservice to all, and will only weaken the stability that our children deserve.    

Our country and our civilization need to rediscover the meaning of the family. We people of faith need to repropose the meaning of family through word and through the witness of our lives. It is a universal good, not just for people of faith but for all. 

With the passing of this bill, the Ontario government has moved us in the opposite direction. We've got a lot of work to do.