During the 2024 U.S. election campaign, Vice President JD Vance was widely condemned for calling various Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and for saying that people without children lack a real stake in the country’s future.
While there is no need to insult childless people, the reality is that marriage and family formation are critically important for individual and societal wellbeing. It’s a point we need to talk about more in Canada.
Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell, staff at the Canadian think tank Cardus, reenergize the Canadian conversation about marriage and the family with their new book I…Do? Why Marriage Still Matters. They say that, “This book is ultimately an effort, using social scientific research, to initiate a conversation about reimagining what marriage is and why it still matters.”
Mrozek and Mitchell hope to promote a public conversation about marriage and highlight its importance in a world where marriage has become “nice but wholly unnecessary.” Highlights include clear social scientific research, helpful frameworks for understanding different views of marriage, and a brief prognostication on the future of families. Some reflections on the natural foundations of the family would round out the book, but the authors seemed intentionally focused on summarizing evidence while leaving aside religious or philosophical arguments about the nature of the family.
Research
A recent survey found that over half of Canadians believe marriage is unnecessary and nearly half think that marriage has become obsolete. But God’s design of marriage is the foundation for family life, and stable families are the foundation of the surrounding community. Significant social problems have been linked with broken families. Mrozek and Mitchell convincingly show, using social-scientific research, that marriage is best for men, women, children, and society as a whole.
Married men are much more likely to remain involved in family life. Marriage also increases happiness, health, and financial well-being. Marriage is also important for children, as children do best when they grow up with a married mother and father.
By contrast, cohabitation before marriage increases the risk of divorce. Risk of abuse for children greatly increases if they live with unrelated adults. Men from separated common law relationships are less likely than divorced men to keep contact with their kids. Overall, 23% of couples in Canada live in common law relationships, though that number is skewed by exceptionally high rates in Quebec, where 36% of couples live common law.
Frameworks
The book explores two very different conceptions of marriage: the soulmate model and the institutional model. The soulmate model is individualistic and looks for emotional satisfaction from marriage. It looks for someone to “complete me.” Permanency is secondary. Soulmate marriage, then, results in a more fragile commitment. In the soulmate model, the wedding itself becomes a platform for self-expression.
Mrozek and Mitchell emphasize marriage as an institution. Institutions, they write, are “a bundle of formal and informal rules, social norms, legal and natural rights, and obligations.” Institutions help to mitigate certain problems and involve much more than personal self-fulfillment. They meet needs outside of the control of any one person. Sociologist Brad Wilcox writes of the institutional model that it “seeks to integrate sex, parenthood, economic cooperation, and emotional intimacy into a permanent union.” The institution of marriage meets the needs of individuals, family, and society.
How our society views marriage isn’t just an academic question. It has real consequences. In a brief section on same-sex marriage, the authors note that without a soulmate model of marriage, where marriage is mainly about love and companionship, our society would not have contemplated same-sex marriage because it would not fit into marriage as an institution. The redefinition of marriage illustrated the societal shift to considering the ‘rights’ of adults in relationships rather than considering the needs of children for stability found in homes with a married mother and father. Such a shifting framework opens the door to allow other forms of marriage such as polygamy as well.
The book also contrasts the cornerstone view with the capstone view of marriage. The average age of marriage in North America today is just over thirty for men and just under thirty for women. The cornerstone view of marriage is one where those who get married seek to build their lives around marriage. Earlier marriage is a foundation on which to build a family, acquire joint assets, and more. By contrast, the capstone view sees marriage as coming after you’ve achieved certain career and financial milestones. Many factors contribute to declining marriage rates in North America, but the authors note that, “If marriage is viewed as a destination rather than a starting point, it will remain out of reach for some who desire it.”
Looking Ahead
Mrozek and Mitchell argue that Canada needs to rebuild a healthy marriage culture. Canadian politicians are especially reticent to discuss the importance of marriage and the family, even when compared to politicians in other individualistic countries like the US and UK. Addressing marriage and the family through public conversations is an important part of prioritizing the institution. Additionally, the predominant view of marriage in Western culture has shifted dramatically away from the institutional and cornerstone views. But marriage is not only taught through conversations, whether by politicians or anyone else. The authors note that “healthy marriage is caught as much as taught. It needs to be modeled in order to thrive.” Parents need to see themselves as the first teachers who show their children what healthy relationships look like.
Despite the obvious benefits of marriage, which are laid out clearly in the book, the authors admit that marriage is rarely perfect or easy. They acknowledge difficulties even within good marriages and the tragic reality of bad marriages and divorce. They write: “We shouldn’t look for marriage stories in the rom-com or Disney fairy tale section; rather, marriage is more like a Tolkien-style adventure. Happy-clappy, romanticized versions of marriage are proving to be inadequate in the face of the inevitable challenges and hardships couples face.” They go on to note that “‘here be dragons’ is a better leitmotif for telling a better story about marriage than ‘you complete me.’” The challenging adventure then leads to more growth, strength, and fulfillment. This perspective complements an institutional model of marriage, where there are duties and obligations, and the institution is not simply for self-fulfillment or meeting one’s own needs.
With regard to public policy, the authors caution humility about its limits in forming a healthy marriage culture. The state does not have the primary responsibility for improving marriage and family, but it does have an important role to play. While not providing many clear policy prescriptions, the authors say, “the state needs to have a clear rationale concerning how it defines marriage and where and why it asserts itself in this domain.” Mrozek and Mitchell also think policymakers should participate in public conversations about the benefits of marriage.
The Foundations of Marriage
The authors say up front that “while we come to the topic of marriage as Christians, we do not make theological arguments in the book.” Instead, they are trying to use social scientific evidence to help readers understand the importance of marriage as a public good.
This is a helpful clarification and an understandable approach to persuading a broader, non-Christian audience. However, the authors could have taken a little more care in how they present the nature of the institution of marriage. They rightly say that marriage is not a government creation, but elsewhere they imply that society created the institution of marriage. For example, they write, “Humans are wired for pair bonding. The idea that vulnerable men and women need each other in different ways is a central reason why human beings created a way of living together that we would eventually call marriage.” The problem with emphasizing the societal component is that if society created marriage, society can also uncreate it or fundamentally change it, as many are trying to do today. While society may profoundly shape people’s perception of marriage, it cannot fundamentally change the institution of marriage.
Rather, marriage was created by God as an institution before government (or society as we know it) existed. That is ultimately the reason why marriage and a biblical family structure work best; God created it to work that way. This has further implications for policy proposals and conversations about other issues such as divorce or same-sex marriage. It allows us to have a clear indication of right and wrong, rather than simply better and worse.
Conclusion
Social science evidence for marriage is valuable in helping Christians, Canadians, and policymakers understand what works best. The facts and research also help us make a public case for supporting marriage and the natural family structure. But we also need to understand why marriage works. We want policy to move in a direction that is best for those around us, and it is no coincidence that God’s design is what works best. Rather, God’s design and what works best always go hand in hand.
Stable families are critically important, not just to the members of a particular family, but to society as a whole. I…Do? includes helpful discussions about the reasons for the decline of marriage and clearly outlines why we need to revive the conversation about marriage and family. Canadian culture and policymakers would do well to pay attention to the importance of marriage and its impact on so many other issues in our society.
The highest court in Manitoba has issued a ruling in a case involving same-sex marriage. The court concluded that civil marriage commissioners have no constitutional recourse if the provincial government forces them to perform same-sex ceremonies.
The case involves a man named Kevin Kisilowsky, who works with street people and gangs in downtown Winnipeg as part of a street ministry. However, Kisilowsky is not ordained as a pastor.
Jay Cameron with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, Kisilowsky’s lawyer, says in the course of this ministry, Kisilowsky would encounter people who – because of conviction – decided that they should get married. Cameron explains that Kisilowsky “found himself in a position to be officiating these services, and he was having to have somebody else come in to do the legal part.”
Cameron says when Kisilowsky first got his licence to perform weddings in 2003, his name was on what the Manitoba government called a “private” list of marriage commissioners. “He [Kisilowsky] told Vital Statistics in Manitoba upfront that he was comfortable only doing Christian services. That he didn’t want to marry Wiccans or Hindus or atheists. (So) he was put on a private list. His name was kept out of general circulation, and he wasn’t accessible to the general public. He would just perform marriages in the course of his ministry, where it was necessary.”
Cameron says the Manitoba government was “fine” with the private list. “There was no conflict between the rights of Wiccans or Hindus or atheists or any other demographic of people.”
However, that all changed the following year, when same-sex marriage became legal in Manitoba. Cameron says on the day that decision was made, “all the marriage commissioners in the province were instructed that they must begin to marry same-sex couples. They got rid of the private list that Mr. Kisilowsky was on, (and) threw all the people who were on the private list into the public list. Made them accessible to everybody, and said ‘Now you have to marry whoever comes to you.’”
Cameron says the fundamental issue in this case is the legal notion that governments have a “duty to accommodate” religious beliefs. Cameron says the decision to get rid of the private list actually ended that accommodation. “Mr. Kisilowsky – before same-sex marriage became legal – (said he) wouldn’t marry atheists or Hindus or Muslims or agnostics. He wanted to marry only Christian people. And Manitoba was fine with that. But as soon as same-sex marriage came in, all of a sudden there’s a harm to that particular demographic; that’s what Manitoba is arguing.”
Manitoba’s objective, according to the decision, is “to prevent discrimination against those who wish a civil marriage.” This means there is a conflict between freedom of religion and equality, even though Mr. Kisilowsky had never actually refused a same-sex couple. It is not Mr. Kisilowsky’s actions, but Manitoba’s policy that created this conflict of rights.
Once this conflict is accepted, Mr. Kisilowsky argues it could have been avoided by a private list while the Manitoba government says Mr. Kisilowsky can still perform marriages as a religious official or by obtaining a temporary appointment as needed.
In assessing these options, the Manitoba court is concerned about the potential harm to same-sex couples suggesting that other marriage commissioners might follow Mr. Kisilowsky’s example, especially in remote communities. The impact, the court says, is “very significant and genuinely offensive.”
This means the Manitoba government created a conflict of rights with Mr. Kisilowsky’s religious freedom on one side and the potential offensive impact to same-sex couples on the other side. And then they decided in favor of the latter. Cameron opines, “They created a hierarchy of rights where same-sex rights or LGBTQ rights are at the top, and everybody else’s rights are underneath.” And, Cameron says, “that’s not how Canada is supposed to work.”
The Manitoba Court of Appeal did concede that Mr. Kisilowsky’s religious freedom was infringed in the decision to force him to perform same-sex ceremonies or surrender his licence, but it claimed the infringement was “reasonable”.
Cameron says they are considering applying for leave to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Click here to listen to the full interview with Jay Cameron, as featured on our Lighthouse News podcast this week.
Kevin Kisilowsky had taken the Manitoba government to court after he was ordered to give up his commission because he refused to perform same sex ceremonies. Mr. Kisilowsky was represented in court by lawyer Jay Cameron from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.
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LN: Mr. Cameron, can you give us some background, some history on this case? How did this all get started?
JC: Well Mr. Kisilowsky was a private guy. He’s not a minister, but he works for a ministry whereby he ministers to street people; gangs, people who normally aren’t serviced by a church. And in the course of that ministry, he would encounter people who – because of conviction – decided that they should get married. So he found himself in a position to, you know, be officiating these services, and he was having to have somebody else come in to do the legal part.
And so he applied to be a private marriage commissioner in 2003, and he told Vital Statistics in Manitoba upfront that he was comfortable only doing Christian services. That he didn’t want to marry Wiccans or Hindus or atheists. And they said “No problem. As a private marriage commissioner you have the option of being put on a private list.” And he was put on a private list, that’s been established now. His name was kept out of general circulation, and he wasn’t accessible to the general public. He would just perform marriages in the course of his ministry, where it was necessary.
And everything was fine. You know, there was no conflict between the rights of Wiccans or Hindus or atheists or any other demographic of people – until 2004, when the province of Manitoba decided that same-sex marriage would be legal. And on the same day that decision came out – in a case called Vogel – all the marriage commissioners in the province were instructed that they must begin to marry same-sex couples. And in that same letter – on the same date – they got rid of the private list that Mr. Kisilowsky was on, right? So basically they threw all the people who were on the private list into the public list. Made them accessible to everybody, and said “Now you have to marry whoever comes to you.”
And that created a conflict. The conflict didn’t exist before Manitoba decided to get rid of the private list, because nobody was approaching Mr. Kisilowsky. Nobody – gay, straight, Hindu, atheist – nobody was approaching Mr. Kisilowsky in the context of his ministry. He was ascertaining a few couples who wanted to be married.
And so that’s essentially the foundation of the case. They [the Manitoba government] told him he had to turn in his licence. He refused, and he sued for a declaration that Section 2(a) of the Charter [freedom of religion] was infringed by requiring him to marry same-sex couples.
LN: I’m looking at the ruling here, [https://www.canlii.org/en/mb/mbca/doc/2018/2018mbca10/2018mbca10.html] and one of the things that intrigues me – because you’ve already touched on it – Paragraph 10 of the ruling says that “Manitoba denies that there ever existed a private list to perform only Christian marriages.” However, they do admit there was – at the time – a public list of marriage commissioners and a list of people who didn’t want their names to be made public. Is that part of the central dispute here?
JC: Yes, it is. Because initially Manitoba denied – from Mr. Kisilowsky’s perspective – Manitoba denied the existence of a private list. But in the course of the first hearing in front of the lower court in Manitoba, it came out that there was a private list, and that Mr. Kisilowsky’s name was on it. And so that is an established fact now.
What’s interesting about that is that there was an accommodation for people who didn’t want to be on the public list for whatever reason. Whether that reason was religious, or whether that reason was privacy, or what have you. There was a private list, and there were people on it. Mr. Kisilowsky was on it. That’s established fact.
What is also established fact is that Manitoba decided – when same-sex marriage became legal, this is the catalyst – that it would get rid of that private list in order to compel all marriage commissioners to marry same-sex couples. And so that’s a central issue in this case, because they didn’t have to do that. They decided to do that.
And, you know, that’s big, right? Because it created the conflict. There wasn’t a conflict before that, and what we’re saying is that in a free society, where you have people of a variety of different beliefs – about marriage and sexuality, God and atheism and agnosticism – that in such a society, if gay people want to get married, it’s legal in Canada. There are lots of people who will perform the service. That’s the law. But on the flip side, if there’s somebody who doesn’t want to perform the service – because of their particular perspective on morality or the teaching of a particular religion – that in a free society those rights should also be accommodated. And the amazing thing is that in this case, they were accommodated. The private list was an accommodation, and Manitoba decided to cease that accommodation. Now what we’re saying is that that was an act of discrimination.
LN: It’s interesting, because the ruling from the Appeals Court said that Mr. Kisilowsky’s rights were infringed, but in spite of this the decision was “reasonable” because the other rights trumped these rights. It’s the old “competing rights” issue, and how does that balance out? That’s the core of this ruling from the Appeals court, right?
JC: Well, there’s a number of different facets. The Charter jurisprudence – the law from the courts – says that you can’t have a hierarchy of rights in regards to Charter rights. And that in the event of a conflict, the proper thing to do is to delineate the rights, or classify the rights so that you don’t have a conflict. So you treat them in such a manner whereby you accommodate both rights. And what we’re saying is that that private list accommodated those rights, and the only reason there was a conflict – if there was a conflict – is because Manitoba decided to get of the private list.
So Mr. Kisilowsky – before same-sex marriage became legal – he wouldn’t marry all sorts of people. And Manitoba was just fine with that. He wouldn’t marry atheists or Hindus or Muslims or agnostics. He wanted to marry only Christian people. And Manitoba was fine with that. They accommodated that. And he was on a private list because of that. And there was no evidence of harm to anybody. But as soon as same-sex marriage came in, all of a sudden there’s a harm to that particular demographic; that’s what Manitoba is arguing. And so they created a hierarchy of rights where same-sex rights or LGTQ rights are at the top, and everybody else’s rights are underneath. And that’s not how Canada is supposed to work.
We see that playing out in other areas of society these days as well, right? In a free society, you’re supposed to have your own opinion. To speak your own thoughts. To have your own beliefs. To teach, to express, to live. And more and more, what’s happening is that your right under Section 2 of the Charter to disagree with certain popular cultural trends is being limited in favour of those trends. And that’s not how the constitution works, or how it’s supposed to work.
LN: So this is being appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada now?
JC: We’re contemplating an appeal. You don’t have an appeal as a right in Canada, with this case. You have to ask for leave to appeal, and we are contemplating whether or not we’re going to take that step.
What happened?
In May of 2014, a woman in a same-sex relationship called a private Evangelical school in Ontario to inquire about enrolling her pre-school aged child. The school informed the woman that her application would be rejected because she and her partner would not be able to sign the school’s list of shared views because one of those views is that marriage is between one man and one woman. The parents filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, alleging discrimination under the Human Rights Code. However, the Tribunal found that the Christian school had a full defence as a religious organization.
You can read the entire judgment here.
The legal nuts and bolts
The way Ontario’s Human Rights Code works is that no one can discriminate in offering services to someone because of certain personal characteristics, known as “prohibited grounds of discrimination”. The list of prohibited grounds includes characteristics like ethnicity, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. This means schools typically cannot refuse admission because of the parents’ sexual orientation. The law creates a presumption that discriminating against someone because of one of these characteristics is unjust or prejudicial, although there are of course exceptions. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or girls-only schools are all examples of perfectly legal discrimination and association.
Section 18 of the Human Rights Code is a clause that allows special interest organizations an exemption to discriminate (i.e. differentiate or make a distinction) if they meet a three-part test.
- The organization must be religious, philanthropic, educational, fraternal or social.
- The organization must be primarily engaged in serving the interest of persons who share a certain characteristic listed in the Human Rights Code (i.e. religion, ethnicity, sex, etc.).
- The organization’s membership must be limited to those identified by the prohibited ground.
In other words, if a religious organization serves religious people it is allowed to discriminate based on religious grounds.
The Christian school’s policy and the law
The school in this case easily met the first part of the test outlined above, but the Tribunal was less certain about the second part. Its decision discussed several questions. What are the school’s shared religious beliefs? Are differing views about marriage among Evangelical Christians relevant here? Who is the school serving – the child or the parents?
The Tribunal decided that the belief that marriage is restricted to a man and a woman was a sincerely held religious belief by the school and the Evangelical community that they serve. The Tribunal noted that there is no distinction between the interests of the child and the parents as the child is pre-school age and it is the parents who are applying to the school on behalf of the child. The Tribunal also noted that the parents had other options and the child was not being denied access to education.
The Tribunal went on to find that membership is in fact limited to those of the Evangelical community meeting the third part of the test.
Concluding, the Tribunal noted that this scenario is exactly why the exemption exists in the Human Rights Code. The Evangelical community has the freedom to come together and form their own school without being coerced into broadening it.
Is this a loving decision?
ARPA Canada posted an article about this decision on our Facebook page and we received a lot of feedback. There were a couple of concerns expressed. One was that this school is failing to love the child. The phrase “what would Jesus do?” came up along with references to Jesus’ saying, “Let the children come to me.” Is it loving or even justifiable to exclude the child because of his parents?
The Human Rights Tribunal indirectly wrestled with this question when it dealt with who was being served by the school – was it the parents or the child? And this question arose for a lot of the same reasons the commenters were concerned. How could it be that the school would deny admission to the child because of the parents’ lifestyle?
The Tribunal found that you can’t separate the child’s and the parents’ interests legally. It was the parents who applied to the school. The religion of the child is assumed to be that of the parents because the child is not old enough to develop his own. The effect of this decision is a rejection of the parents’ application on behalf of the child. It is a practical reality that parents make a lot of decisions on behalf of their children – and it has long been recognized by the courts that parents determine the education and religious upbringing of their children.
The interconnected interests of the child and parent are exactly why the school rejected the child. It wasn’t any animosity towards the child or concern that the child might “contaminate” the other kids. The decision to not enrol this child was based on the school’s philosophy about education.
The philosophy of the school is this: education is the responsibility of parents, who make use of the school – not the other way around. The school describes its role as one of “assisting and supporting parents relative to their responsibility before God.” This philosophy understands education as not just downloading facts into a child’s mind, but shaping a child’s character. It also holds that the Bible is infused into every area of a Christian’s life. This means that Biblical teaching is not relegated to a specific class time. Nor, crucially, is education relegated to school hours. What is taught in the school needs to be reinforced in the home and vice versa.
The Tribunal recognized this philosophy as a “covenantal model” as opposed to a “missional model”. The covenantal model focuses on serving the needs of a particular Christian community. This is in contrast to a missional school which views its role as primarily offering Christian education to the broader community. The reason for the covenantal model is again tied to the school’s emphasis on its role as an extension of the Christian family and not a replacement.
Based on this philosophy, the school requires that the parents agree to certain core beliefs. This requirement does not arbitrarily police people’s conduct, but recognizes that in order for this philosophy of education to be effective, the parents and the school need to be on the same page about certain foundational beliefs. Because the school is an extension of the family, the child’s education is undermined when he is taught contradictory beliefs at home and at school.
The merits of one model over the other is a topic for another day. The reality is that this is a covenantal school and that fact affects more than just their admissions policy. It affects the entire way they educates the children. The question is, short of changing their entire educational philosophy, how can they love this child?
If the school accepted the child, he would have an education at school that attempts to shape his character one way just to have the exact opposite education at home. As the Tribunal stated, “the school recognizes that not all families share its views, and they did not want to confuse children by teaching something at odds with what parents might teach in the home.” The reality is there is a distinction between those children raised in Christian homes and those raised in non-Christian homes. That distinction is not something that a school can just erase by admitting this child.
While we feel for the child in this situation, you cannot ignore the interconnected nature of the parents and the family. The rejection cannot be viewed as merely a rejection of the child because the child cannot be viewed as independent from the family he is a part of. The loving response is recognizing the child as belonging to his family and recognizing the difference between a child being raised as a child of God verses one being raised to reject God.
To fulfill its duty to the other parents, to this same-sex couple and by extension to the child, the school had to deny admission and encourage the parents to seek out a school with either different core beliefs or a different philosophy of education.
This rejection should be accompanied by a clear direction to go to Jesus. This couple and this child need Jesus. The way to urge them to accept Jesus is not through blurring the sinfulness of the parents’ lifestyle and pretending that it bears no impact on the child. Instead this family needs to go to the church, repent of their sins, and cast their complete hope on Jesus Christ. We should eagerly pray for a day when this child can attend this school as a child of God.
Is this school targeting same-sex couples?
Another trend in the comments was to accuse the school of targeting same-sex couples. This is an unfair accusation. The school has rejected applications before because the parents did not attend church or because the parents were living together unmarried. This is not about targeting same-sex couples. It is about being committed to a Biblical ethic on sexuality (and much more than just sexuality!) and a covenantal understanding of education. It just so happens that the only parents to take the school to the Human Rights Tribunal were the same-sex couple.
The Tribunal also deals with the argument that the school would not be significantly impacted by making an exception in this case. It recognizes that demanding that exception goes to the very core of the school’s mission. The private school was established and parents send their children to this school specifically because of its religious nature, because of the code of shared beliefs, and because of the philosophy that education is a shared endeavor between the parents and the school. Demanding that the school diverge from these principles is to encroach on the freedom of the school and the other parents to practice their religion.
This is demonstrated in the legal reasoning: this private school’s purpose is clearly to serve a specific community and it does so in a way consistent with the needs of that community. The school clearly communicated its philosophy and the demands that are made on parents, both through its handbook as well as in conversations with the parents. The Ontario Human Rights Code honours the freedom of organizations like this school. The Tribunal notes that “the school’s views may not be popular and may not even reflect the views of the majority of Ontarians. This, however, is not a reason to remove this protection for adherents of the school’s creed, and may in fact be a reason to guard it.”
To summarize, we have a decision based on good law. The Human Rights Code has, for good reason, an exemption for religious organizations. The Tribunal correctly applied it. Taking into account the parents’ choices regarding the child, the school made a decision that was in the best interests of the other students as well as this child. The same-sex couple who wanted to enrol their child in this school disagreed fundamentally with not just one belief but with the entire philosophy of the school.
But in the end, Polizogopoulos says the Tribunal found that Section 18 of the Ontario Human Rights Code applied in this case. “Section 18…is for fraternal, philanthropic, religious, or cultural/ethnic groups. So for example, if I run a Greek club, it’s not inappropriate for me to require all members to be Greek.” He says the Tribunal ruled that the school was “clearly an organization that benefitted from that exemption.”
ARPA has been watching the case closely. Law articling student Tabitha Ewert, who works in the Ottawa office, says the decision did generate some misunderstandings which needed to be set straight. “We posted an article on the decision on our Facebook page, and we got a lot of comments like ‘How is this loving the child? How (does this line up with) Jesus saying ‘let the little children come unto Me?’” She says there were accusations that the ruling was “hurting the LGBT parents’ child, in order to preserve an elitist Christian school.” However, she says that criticism just isn’t accurate. “No one is saying that the child can’t come to Jesus, but the fact is that admitting him into the school is not the way to do that. It’s not loving to the child to have the child be taught one way in school and another way at home, especially on something as fundamental as a definition of marriage.”
The window for an appeal of the ruling has now passed, but the Ontario Education Ministry has issued a statement saying it is “reviewing the decision.”
LN: Andrea, off the top, I’d like to take a 10-thousand foot view of the numbers. More people are living alone; more than 28 percent of families are single-person units. That’s the highest rate ever. Also, fewer people are getting married and more are opting to just live together rather than get married. We’ll get into those specifics, but first, let’s look at the overall trends. What are they telling us about demographics and society in general?
AM: Right, so demographics is the word that I was going to bring up. We have changing demographics, which is certainly one aspect of these statistics. We have an aging society. We know that in Canada today we have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 15. As people age they’re more likely to be living alone. But then you partner that with the decline in marriage rates, and you basically have sort of an increased social isolation where people are living alone both at the start of life and at the end of life. Some claims in the data were that there’s a higher divorce rate also – and certainly that would be a negative feature leading to living alone – but I’m not convinced there is a higher divorce rate, simply because we’re not getting married anymore. The reality of the data is we don’t know what the divorce rate is because Statistics Canada doesn’t measure it anymore. So from 10-thousand feet I would say that the biggest concern I have around the data is an increase in social isolation, and that’s something for all of us to be aware of.
LN: Cardus has written a 20-page report analyzing all this. The focus is on the decline in the marriage rates and the increase in cohabitation; some of the effects that those factors have on societal stability. We’ll talk about that in a minute, but I’d also like your take on the single-person-family thing. Twenty-eight percent is the highest proportion ever of people choosing to live alone. Combine that with another stat I saw that’s not really addressed in your report, that more and more young people are continuing to live at home much longer than they used to. You know, there’s this stereotype of the 28-year old still living in their parents’ basement. It seems to be taking hold.
AM: Right, well you used the word “choose”. “Choose to live alone.” I’m not convinced that this is people’s first choice in any event. Most of the statistics we have from surveys and polling suggest that young people do want to get married, and I don’t think any of us aspire to live alone. With the young people living alone, or the phenomenon of remaining in your parents’ basement, we certainly have increased likelihood of that, and I think there’s a cost factor there. But I also think that we have lost what sociologists might call a “life script.” And that script used to be quite clear. That you would finish high school, you’d get married, you’d have children. People knew how to get from youthful adolescence into what was considered adult life; your own life. And today, we no longer have that life script, in part due to the decline of the marriage culture. So people don’t know how to get where they’re desiring to go. There’s also the finances involved for sure. Real estate prices are high across the country – in urban areas in particular – so (there’s) a number of different factors there.
LN: Now to the core of the report. The analysis of marriage versus common law relationships. In the first place, there’s a problem with actually ferreting out some of that data. Stats-Can has changed the goal-posts on this. Explain that one for me.
AM: Yeah, and I think that’s a bigger story than people realize. So basically in the past, Statistics Canada would have isolated cohabitation from marriage. We would have known precisely what percent of families are married versus living together versus lone-parent families. For this census, they changed that. They obscured the cohabiting data. So what we get in this census is on that they call “intact families”. So biological or adopting parents who remain together. But it doesn’t matter to StatCan whether you are married or not. They only look at whether you’re an intact family, and then you can get the lone-parenting statistics. But we are going to be making a special request for the co-habitating data, which is very important for reasons I’m sure we’ll get into.
LN: In spite of those statistical difficulties, the data does show a trend toward lower marriage rates – you did manage to sort of ferret that out – along with an increase in common law relationships. It may seem self-evident, but explain again why this distinction is important, and why it’s a bad thing for society in general.
AM: The distinction is very important. It’s because marriage and common law are not the same thing. And everybody engaging in the different relationship forms knows they’re not the same thing. Common law relationship are less stable. We know we have a divorce rate associated with marriage. In spite of that divorce rate, common law relationships are still less stable; more likely to fall apart. A child raised by common law parents – parents who are simply living together – is more likely to see the dissolution of her or her parents’ relationship. And that is a problem because it results in different social statistics for that child. For example, an increased likelihood of not staying in school, dropping out of school, doing drugs, earlier sexual initiation. Some of the social problems we see are related, correlated – not caused by, but correlated – with family breakdown. So from our perspective, it’s important to measure those things and keep them separate. Incidentally, in an ironic moment in the Statistics Canada release of the Census 2016 data, they do refer to a higher likelihood in Quebec of children seeing their parents’ dissolution of relationship. And they actually go so far as to say that may be because Quebec has such high rates of co-habitation. So they allude to it in the report; they just don’t give us the hard data. But it’s important for Canadians to know those two types of relationships are; they’re not the same thing.
LN: Your report makes four recommendations. Can you briefly outline them for us, and also how you hope to have the government address them? Are you going to a Cabinet Minister with this, or what’s the plan?
AM: So, on the recommendations, we basically are asking for a revival of marriage as a social and cultural institution. We really want Canadians to be able to embrace stable married life, and understand that this is the best way to raise children. When it comes to how we aim to achieve this, I think a very early starting point for Cardus Family will be to ask for clearer statistics to be presented to Canadians. I mentioned earlier in the interview that we have stopped collecting the divorce rate at the federal level. The same is true of collecting just the crude marriage rate at the federal level. We no longer have access to those statistics. We stopped collecting them in 2011, which is why the last data-point for crude marriage rates in the report is 2008. That’s almost 10 years ago and it is a real loss for so many reasons. For researchers, for cultural indicators, it’s a loss to not have that data. So I think we have to – as researchers – start by asking for the correct data to be able to assess it. And then from there, we can provide good information; continue to provide information about the cultural and social ramifications of marriage. It’s not just a private institution, it extends into our economy and our culture, and it’s most important for raising of children. Something that Canadians need to be made more aware of. So as a research institution, that’s what we aim to do. Certainly, we would start by asking for the correct data-points to be presented.
- How will Bill 28 affect me and my family?
- Are “natural families” and “natural parents” really so important? What about adoptive parents?
- Isn’t the main purpose of the bill to simplify the process for both partners in a same-sex couple to be recognized as parents?
- Bill 28 facilitates having children through surrogacy. What’s the problem with that?
If you have not read ARPA’s main article on Bill 28, we encourage you to read it first. There you will also find links to EasyMail letters on this topic. If you have already emailed your MPP, you can use this FAQ to assist you as you follow up with an additional email or phone call.
How will Bill 28 affect me and my family?
Bill 28 does not simply create or add new kinds of families. It redefines all families, present and future. By removing references to “mother”, “father”, “natural parents”, and “blood” relations from Ontario law, and by creating alternative, contractual “families” between multiple unmarried and unrelated adults and children conceived further to their “parentage agreements”, Bill 28 knocks family law even further off its foundations.
The bill gives the illusion of greater freedom. It gives people more “options” to choose from as they determine what a family is for them. But if the state can redefine the family and offer more “options” or “rights” by knocking family law off its foundations of marriage and blood relations, it can also take rights away. What will become of parental rights if a “family” is whatever the state says it is and a “parent” is whoever the state says is a parent? It’s hard to know, but it’s deeply disconcerting.
Do we care about our children and grandchildren’s understanding of who they are, what a family is, and why it’s important? Make no mistake, education policy and curriculum (among other government policies and programs) will fall in line with Bill 28’s radical changes to Ontario law. This is about more than immediate practical consequences to my parental rights or yours – it is about embedding a false understanding of who we are as human beings into the law.
According to a leading family law textbook, family law has traditionally been concerned with “the relationships between husband and wife and parent and child.” And, “The main subjects of family law have, therefore, traditionally been marriage, separation and divorce, property rights of spouses during the marriage and on marriage breakdown, support obligations of spouses to one another, the care and custody of children, support obligations of parents to their children, the intervention of the state in the parent-child relationship through child protection legislation, and the establishment of a parent-child relationship through adoption.” (Hovius on Family Law, 7th edition)
Bill 28 will impact many and likely all of these areas in the long term. It makes marriage, which our law and culture have been devaluing for decades, even less important in family law. Far less. Marriage-plus-children will no longer be the basic model (which the law of common law relationships and adoption reflect). Having children the way almost everyone in the world does will be considered in Ontario law to just be one way (and no more legitimate or desirable) among others to form a “family”. The “natural family” and “natural parents” are not to be favoured, promoted, or given primacy in law. Bill 28 rejects the very idea of a natural family.
Bill 28 declares all “families” – whatever voluntary arrangements the state deems worthy of the term – “equal”. So it renders marriage, common law relationships, and blood relations – the foundations for family law – unimportant in law. Of course people can still form families by getting married and having children under Bill 28. But the philosophy of Bill 28 is that you are not family because you are married or related by blood. (Hence the removal of references to relations “by blood” and to “natural parents”.) Rather, you are family if the law says you are. And if the law says you are family, your family is “equal” to all other families. If the state one day says you are not a family or you aren’t parents – even to your own biological children – what will you say?
Are “natural families” or “natural parents” really so important? What about adoptive parents?
Emphasizing the importance of biology and blood relations between children and parents sometimes raises questions about adoptive parenting. Properly understood, however, adoption does not undermine the “conjugal conception of parenthood” or the natural family, but affirms the good of both.
In an adoptive family, too, it is marital love that is the starting point for the family, Dr. Tollefsen explains. The mutual commitment of spouses to each other and the child is what initiates the familial relationship, whether the child is the biological fruit of marital love or grafted into that relationship of mutual love and commitment through adoption.
Adoption should not be understood as a way to remedy the “problem” of infertility. Rather, adoption is for the good of the child. Adoption integrates children into a family who would otherwise not have a family. Affirming the good of adoption does not require redefining the family. It does not require throwing aside conjugal union as the foundation of the family. Adoption ideally provides the child both a mother and a father (other considerations being equal). Placing the child with relatives is also desirable where possible – again, because blood relationships do matter.
We recognize adoption to be a good alternative for a child where the child’s natural parents are deceased or unable or unwilling to care for the child, but the law prioritizes and protects the child’s relationship with his or her natural parents and should continue to do so.
Even when children are adopted, we generally recognize the good of the child learning in time who his or her natural parents are, for health and identity reasons. Bill 28 does not provide for this.
Bill 28 designs a legal system that legitimizes and encourages deliberately bringing children into the world who are separated at birth from their mother and father and whose legal parents may have no relationship beyond the merely contractual. Adoption, conversely, is intended to provide a child with a family in place of the child’s natural parents where the latter are deceased, unable, or unwilling to care for the child, without denying the reality that the child does in fact have biological and adoptive parents (categories that Bill 28 erases).
Bill 28 may even make it more difficult for some couples to adopt children. If a couple holds the view that children do best when raised by a married mother and father (a view supported by the evidence), or even that children are better off with a married couple as parents than a group of four co-signors of a contract, their views would be plainly contrary to the “All Families Are Equal Act”. Consequently, it may be considered contrary to public policy to place adoptive children with people who hold such beliefs. See for example this story out of the United Kingdom.
Isn’t the main purpose of the bill to simplify the process for both partners in a same-sex couple to be recognized as parents?
Currently, if a same-sex couple wishes to have a child that is legally recognized as the child of both of them, they can either adopt a child together or one of the two can be the biological parent of a child with a third party. In the latter case, the non-biological parent of a same-sex couple has to apply to a court to be recognized as a legal parent, effectively legally adopting the child. Also, when a birth is registered in Ontario, the law requires parents to list a mother and a father. This means that same-sex couples cannot both be listed on the birth certificate.
With opposite-sex couples, conversely, the child’s mother’s husband or common law partner is presumed to be the child’s father, unless evidence is presented to the contrary. Both mother and father can be listed on the child’s birth certificate.
The differences are derided by some as discriminatory and unjust. In our view, however, the differences arise not from any irrational animus towards or mistreatment of LGBT persons, but from the real differences between opposite and same-sex couples and the reality that every child has a biological mother and father. One or both of the partners in a same-sex relationship must inevitably be an adoptive parent.
If the goal were simply to save same-sex couples the cost and inconvenience involved in having both partners recognized as legal parents, Ontario could simplify adoption procedures and provide additional support for parents going through that process.
But Bill 28 goes way beyond making things easier for same-sex couples. In fact, as explained elsewhere, it makes couples (opposite-sex or same-sex) far less important in family law overall, opening up alternative contract-based “families” between multiple parties who are not in a committed relationship or related by blood.
Bill 28 facilitates having children through surrogacy. What’s the problem with that?
Surrogacy is a difficult and complex issue, legally and ethically. If the Ontario government is interested in reforming the law of surrogacy, it should at least study the matter in depth and allow time for public input first. Here are some of the problems with surrogacy.
Essentially, surrogacy commodifies women and children. It makes a woman’s reproductive organs objects than can be used and rented. It risks causing disruption in the lives of children born through surrogacy. It can even leave children vulnerable to trafficking. According to international law, surrogacy violates human dignity and children’s best interests, as Adina Portaru (PhD in international law) explains:
Surrogacy under Bill 28 will likely cause substantial confusion and conflict.
Many persons might claim parental rights with respect to a child born out of a surrogacy agreement under Bill 28: the surrogate mother, the genetic mother (egg donor), the husband or common law partner of the surrogate mother (presumptions of paternity), the genetic father (sperm donor), and the four “intended parents” signatory to the surrogacy agreement.
Bill 28 encourages surrogacy and facilitates the establishment of families through “surrogacy agreements” with up to five parties – four “intended parents” plus the surrogate. This new form of family, which has no couple in a committed relationship at its core, depends on women agreeing to be “breeders”.
Other countries such as France, Finland, Iceland, and Germany, completely prohibit surrogacy, recognizing that even altruistic surrogacy can be exploitative and lead to serious conflict. Quebec law does not recognize surrogacy arrangements and does not enforce surrogacy contracts. France does not allow people who arrange to have a child through a surrogate to be recognized as the child’s parents at birth or to adopt the child.
Ontario would do well to at least have a legislative committee study why some jurisdictions have prohibited surrogacy while others have permitted and regulated it.
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski, ANN ARBOR, Michigan, March 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Another new study has added to the compelling evidence that cohabitation before marriage significantly increases relationship instability. Dr. Pamela J. Smock, a research professor at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has published a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family of data gathered on cohabitation in the United States and the implications of cohabitation on relationship stability. (more…)
By Deborah Gyapon: Canadian Christianity: THE VANIER Institute of the Family has released a study that shows divorce rates in Canada have declined markedly since the 1990s. Divorce rates peaked in 1987, according to the study, entitled Divorce: Facts, Causes and Consequences. Rates declined steadily until 1997, and have held at the lower level since then. The study shows rates of conjugal violence also declined between 1993 and 2004. [Read more].
In light of the growing attacks against the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage between a husband and wife, and the rights of conscience and religious liberty, over a hundred and fifty well-known Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox leaders have signed a new declaration about the importance of these matters. The list includes Dr. James Dobson, Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., Rev. Tim Keller, Chuck Coslon, and Ravi Zacharias. You can learn more about this and read the actual declaration by clicking here.