2 - OUR CONSTITUTION DECLARES A HETEROSEXIST WORLDVIEW (1867-2005)

A worldview is a set of beliefs about the reality and meaning of life, which acts as a framework for establishing the truth.  It is expressed in ethics, cosmology, scientific belief, religion, ecology, philosophy, ideology, voting and governance.  Differences in opinion are often rooted in contrasting worldviews.  A state and each of its citizens holds a worldview, either tacitly or declared, and it is conceivable to change these beliefs.  For millenniums the definition of marriage has been rooted in a heterosexist worldview.  Now the Supreme Court has ruled the meaning of marriage can be changed and the Government has decided to do so.  What neither the Supreme Court nor the Liberal Government has told Canadians is that the state’s worldview must be changed along with marriage redefinition. 

2.1 - Heterosexism

Heterosexism is the view that humankind is made up of two purposefully designed sexes - male and female.  Like a lock and key, male and female are companion sexes anatomically designed for procreative union.  Heterosexism does not imply that all males and females must mate and procreate; however, there is the reality that survival of humankind requires that some do.  In most societies marriage has been the privileged sacrament for these men and women, institutionalizing their union and legitimizing their offspring before the state.   The family consisting of a father, mother and biologically connected children is seen as the model.  Blended families by divorce and remarriage and other family variations, although common, are viewed as departures from this ideal.

2.2 - Tolerance of Homosexuality Implies a Heterosexist Worldview

“Tolerance” has its origin in the Latin “tolerare,” meaning “to endure.”  The machinist works within tolerance from design and the doctor speaks of tolerance to pain.  The state associates tolerance with rights given or patience shown to opinions and practices that may be less than exemplary or in minority.   In 1969, the Canadian Government declared a new level of tolerance towards homosexuals when private sexual acts were decriminalized.  The release of George Klippert, jailed for gross indecency, typified the genesis of what the state said would be a “private bedroom” space for gay or lesbian sexual intimacy.  Just two years before, Justice Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau described this new level of tolerance: “Take this thing on homosexuality.  I think the view we take here is that there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.  I think what’s done in private between adults doesn’t concern the criminal code.  When it becomes public this is a different matter, or when it relates to minors this is a different matter…”  The new Houghton Mifflin Reader’s Companion to U.S Women’s History contains an entry by E. Kay Trimberger which gives the feminist perspective on the need for the homosexual liberation era that followed: “Sexuality is not private, but is political and related to power. ‘Compulsory sexuality’ is part of a power structure benefiting heterosexual males at the expense of women and homosexuals.  The inequity is justified by an ideology that sees heterosexuality as natural, universal, and biologically necessary, and homosexuality as the opposite.”[1]  In the same entry Trimberger further asserts “if our sexuality is socially constructed it can also be de- and re-constructed.”  Here reconstruction is a euphemism for the assault on heterosexist institutions of family and marriage.       

Just as the traditional family is defined by law, so changing the law can deconstruct it.  Jodi Freeman, an activist who helped develop EGALE’s[2] factum in the ground-breaking gay rights case, Mossup, has written that “rights litigation can be a useful tool in the pursuit of social change, as part of a broader strategy.”[3]   In 1990, Didi Herman, Canada’s most published gay rights lawyer described the assault on heterosexist governance in stronger terms: “law reform is part of an ideological battle, and fighting over the meanings of marriage and family constitutes resistance to heterosexual hegemony.”[4]  According to F.L. Morton and Rainer Knopff, deconstructing the heterosexist basis of Canadian governance had at least one huge obstacle – ironically, is was the very Charter which same-sex proponents now claim as the basis for their marriage right.  In The Charter Revolution & The Court Party, Morton and Knopff write: “To use the Charter as part of such an ideological battle, gay and lesbian activists had first to overcome the intentional omission of sexual orientation from the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in section 15 of the Charter.  They thus began publishing articles advocating that it be added by way of judicial interpretation.”[5]  According to Didi Herman, this publishing strategy aimed to supply “the appropriate argument for lesbian and gay litigants to make.”[6]  David Raymond Greener conducted a study of 22 law review articles discussing the definition of family, all published since the 1982 Charter.  While the broader literature revealed a lively debate about the merits of the family, including defenses of the traditional family, the law journal articles were “uniformly critical of ‘familial ideology’…[especially] the ‘traditional family,” which was portrayed as “the ideological centerpiece of heterosexual supremacy.”[7]  Morton and Rainer note: “The only serious disagreement in this literature was whether to seek a partial deconstruction of the heterosexual definition of family so as to allow homosexual marriage, or to pursue ‘a more radical deconstruction that aims to abolish any meaningful distinction between family and non-family.’”[8]  According to Jody Freeman, “recognizing marriage between gay men or lesbians would revolutionize its meaning.”[9]

2.3 - Christianity (and Other World Religions) Proclaim a Heterosexist Worldview

In the Miracle of Lesbianism, Sally Gearhart states: “Exclusive heterosexuality has to be understood as a perversion of [humanity’s] natural state.”[10]  She quotes with approval Janis Kelly’s contention that “where women are concerned, highest development of the ability to love can occur only in a homosexual context.”[11]  In her 1974 book Loving Men/Loving Women: Gay Liberation and the Church, Gearhart attacks religious validation of the state’s heterosexist worldview.   She interprets the church’s emphasis on the nuclear family as an expression of hatred toward lesbians and women: “The church’s are our most up-front pushers of the sex-role habit, of daddy-mommy-baby habit.  They peddle the drug daily.”[12]  She rejects the authority of the church as a form of patriarchal oppression, which is reinforced by doctrinal formulations of worship, sin, charity, heaven, judgment and grace.  Gearhart writes: “Ultimately the church as we know it cannot be reformed; it must die.  So must the Trinitarian theology on which it is based.”[13]  Ironically, in this current era of so-called “liberal theologies,” feminist activists like Sally Gearhart are a strong witness reminding us of the true heterosexist paradigm held by the world religions.  Her prophecy of the end of religion as we know it has not come true.  After some forty years of homosexual liberation struggle only one significant Canadian denomination has crossed over to the homosexist side – The United Church of Canada.  The later sections of Marriage Reality (PROFILE OF A “LIBERAL PRO-HOMOSEXUAL” RELIGIOUS ENTITY, ISOLATING THOSE WHO WOULD PROSELYTIZE A REIMAGED JESUS CHRIST and UNANSWERED QUESTIONS FOR SO-CALLED “PRO-GAY” CHRISTIANS) are devoted to disclosing the counterfeit nature of homosexist (pro-gay) Christian churches. 

The Preamble to the Constitution Act of 1982 states: “Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God.”  Our National Anthem petitions “God keep our land glorious and free.”  And up until the start of the liberation era, a majority of elementary public schools commenced the morning classes by reciting the Lord’s Prayer.  Gideon’s New Testaments were also widely distributed to school children.  The dominant position of Christianity in Canada’s founding and contemporary constitutional heritage is evidenced by the 73 percent of Canadians who claim to be Christian.[14]  This large majority increases as you step back in time.  The Lord’s Prayer and the name Jesus Christ has always been part of the Parliamentary Prayer until expunged from House of Commons liturgy in 1994, through the initiative of the House Speaker (and member of the United Church of Canada), MP Peter Milliken.[15]   Moreover, the Hansard record for 8 April 2002, reveals the presentation of a petition in Parliament against the on-going obliteration of the name Jesus Christ from state governance and public use.  The petition in part reads: “We the undersigned are protesting the decision to remove all references of Jesus Christ from the sermons of Armed Forces chaplains.  We feel this is an insult both to the Christian faith and to Christians everywhere.”  It is clear that Christian influence in society and governance has been in retreat with each gain of the homosexist agenda.  However, many still fail to recognize or acknowledge the dire consequences of governance by a state fully operating from a homosexist worldview. 

A contemporary Christian statement of faith in light of the sexual liberation and cloning eras should read:

(1) Human life begins at conception (fertilization) and is a gift of God.  Human cloning is not a divine gift but is a reflection of man’s desire to become the Creator.  All human life, regardless of age and functionality, has God-given intrinsic worth and an inherent right to life.  Abortion is only tolerable in the last resort to save the mother’s life.

(2) God has designed humans to be male or female, anatomically matched for pair bonding and heterosexual procreative union.  God intends sexual activity to be exclusively preserved for the marital partner and monogamously contained within the marriage covenant.  Marriage is meant to be the life-long union of one man and one woman.  God hates divorce.

(3) God intends marriage to be the societal foundation for bearing and rearing children.  The Biblical family model consists of responsible heterosexual parents, biologically connected to their children.  

(4) Homosexuals live in a false reality before God, falling short of God’s intended heterosexual design and purpose for humanity.  God does not elect homosexuals to adopt the lifestyle they choose.  God’s judgment lies in leaving homosexuals where they want to be and giving them over – heart, body, passions and mind - to this untrue reality.

(5) Homosexuals and heterosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God unless they are born again of the Spirit.  The Christian witness of ex-gays, ex-lesbians and born again heterosexuals to the saving grace of Jesus Christ is continuing testimony to God’s sovereign authority and His loving plan for our redemption from the wages of contravening His Law. 

The above statements of faith are an augmentation to the longstanding Christian creedal beliefs.  

Other world religions make up an additional six percent[16] of the Canadian population.  In total, at least 79 percent of Canadians claim faith in religions, which “traditionally” adhere to a heterosexist worldview.  [It would not be unreasonable to assume that half of the remaining population also holds to a heterosexist worldview.]  The proportion of Canadians who follow a so-called “liberal theology“has not been determined by a survey; however, The United Church of Canada declares a pro-gay theology and this denomination makes up 9.6 percent of Canadians.  Excluding the United Church membership brings the total to 69.4 percent, not including secularists and all others.    

In his paper “Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality,” Jewish author and radio show host, Dennis Prager outlines the heterosexist values undergirding Judaism.  He writes: “When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world.  The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism, and later carried forward by Christianity.  The revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.  By contrast, throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society.  Human sexuality, especially male sexuality, is utterly wild. Men have had sex with women and with men; with little girls and young boys; with a single partner and in large groups; with total strangers and immediate family members; and with a variety of domesticated animals. There is little, animate or inanimate, that has not excited some men to orgasm.  Thus, the first thing Judaism did was to de-sexualize God. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth by His will, not through any sexual behavior. This broke with all other religions, and it alone changed human history.  The gods of virtually all civilizations engaged in sexual relations…The revolutionary nature of Judaism's prohibiting all forms of non-marital sex was nowhere more radical, more challenging to the prevailing assumptions of mankind, than with regard to homosexuality.  Indeed, Judaism may be said to have invented the notion of homosexuality, for in the ancient world sexuality was not divided between heterosexuality and homosexuality. That division was the Bible's doing. Before the Bible, the world divided sexuality between penetrator (active partner) and penetrated (passive partner)…Judaism cannot make peace with homosexuality because homosexuality denies many of Judaism's most fundamental principles. It denies life, it denies God's expressed desire that men and women cohabit, and it denies the root structure that Judaism wishes for all mankind, the family.” “In the words of Genesis, ‘God created the human…male and female He created them.’  The union of male and female is not merely some lively ideal; it is the essence of the Jewish outlook on becoming human. ”[17]

There are five references in the Qur'an which have been cited as referring to gay and lesbian behavior.  The two main references to homosexual behavior are: "We also sent Lut[Lot]: He said to his people: ‘Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds’ (Qur'an 7:80-81).  ‘What! Of all creatures do ye come unto the males, and leave the wives your Lord created for you? Nay, but ye are forward folk’ (Qur'an 26:165).”[18]  The Hadith are collections of sayings attributed to Muhammad, some of which discuss liwat (sexual intercourse between males). Two examples are: "When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes."  "Kill the one that is doing it and also kill the one that it is being done to" (in reference to the active and passive partners in gay sexual intercourse).[19]  There is at least one mention of lesbian behavior in the Hadith: "Sihaq (lesbian sexual activity) of women is zina (illegitimate sexual intercourse) among them.”[20]  Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi of the Islamic Society of North America declares: "Homosexuality is a moral disorder. It is a moral disease, a sin and corruption... No person is born homosexual, just like no one is born a thief, a liar or murderer. People acquire these evil habits due to a lack of proper guidance and education."  He goes on: "There are many reasons why it is forbidden in Islam. Homosexuality is dangerous for the health of the individuals and for the society. It is a main cause of one of the most harmful and fatal diseases. It is disgraceful for both men and women. It degrades a person. Islam teaches that men should be men and women should be women. Homosexuality deprives a man of his manhood and a woman of her womanhood. It is the most un-natural way of life. Homosexuality leads to the destruction of family life."[21] Muslim beliefs on homosexuality listed at www.islamic.org.uk include: (1) homosexuality is considered sinful within Islam; (2) homosexuality is a profound mistake; (3) humans are all naturally heterosexual; (4) homosexuality is caused by environmental factors, particularly near the time of puberty; (5) people can control their thoughts and steer themselves away from homosexuality; and (6) any homosexual can become a heterosexual. [22]

When asked in 1997, about homosexuality and Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama said:  “I think we have to make different categories. The first way is celibacy. In that [category], any form of sex is prohibited.  That could be using one's own hand-- any way to ejaculate or to increase sexual desire.  So that is prohibited, not allowed.  Then, if the practitioner is sexual, it is not prohibited.  But sexual includes homosexual also, and oral sex and the other hole.  These, you see, even with one's own wife, of both sex is considered sexual misconduct.  Then another category, no believer, I think, basically, the purpose of sex is reproduction.  So in order to fulfill that purpose, man to man, women to women
cannot fulfill so a little bit could be considered unnatural.”[23]  Editor Jack Nichols notes in Gay Today at Badpuppy, the Dalai Lama states oral and anal sex are unacceptable: “In Beyond Dogma the Dalai Lama writes that 'homosexuality, whether it is between men or between women, is not improper in itself. What is improper is the use of organs already defined as inappropriate for sexual contact.'"[24]

The world’s highest Sikh authority, Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti, interviewed in the revered Golden Temple, disclosed in March 2005, that it is the religious duty of all Sikhs to oppose gay marriage legislation.  Acting as the Jathedar Akal Takht (highest Sikh authority), Vedanti said about his meeting with Canadian Sikh MPs, “I told them about Sikh teachings and how Sikhs should come forward to protect these Sikh tenets.… [homosexuality] is against the Sikh religion and the Sikh code of conduct and totally against the laws of nature.”[25]  Manjit Singh Kalkatta, another highly respected Sikh preacher who sits on the governing body of the Golden Temple, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and a former Punjab state cabinet minister echoed Vedanti’s words.  Kalkatta said, “We expect from every practicing Sikh, whether he is a member of a legislative assembly or Parliament, that he would abide by his faith.  If not, it might be that they are censured.  The advice given by the highest Sikh temporal authority to every Sikh is saying that it is unnatural and ungodly, and the Sikh religion cannot support it.”[26]

According to Wikipedia, Hindu views of homosexuality are varying and the least clear of the world religions.  This is because the accepted Hindu religious texts do not explicitly mention homosexuality.  Marriage in Hinduism is said to fulfill three functions: Prajaa, Dharma and Rati.  In marriage, Prajaa is progeny for perpetuation of one's family, Dharma is fulfillment of responsibilities, and Rati is companionship as friends and mutual pleasure as lovers. These three functions are given in the Dharma Shastras, books that are not considered to be religiously binding within Hinduism.  Debate on homosexuality within Hinduism centers on these three teachings.  Heterosexists argue that: (1) romantic love is only natural between a man and a woman, and it is impossible for two men or two women to experience the same form of love; (2) since romantic love is only possible between a man and a woman, sex between two men or two women can only be the product of lust, and lust is wrong; therefore homosexual activities are wrong; (3) one of the three functions of marriage is Prajaa, the progeny for perpetuation of one's family. A homosexual couple cannot procreate, and thus cannot be married; and (4) premarital and extramarital sex are wrong, and because homosexuals cannot marry, they should not engage in sexual relationships.[27]

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