My Christianity Respects the Rights of Others

by Reginald Stackhouse
Dec 17, 2004
GlobeAndMail.com - Page A23

I am a person who is not supposed to exist: a church-going, Bible-reading, creed-affirming Christian who accepts the Supreme Court's judgment that gay marriage is a valid option within the Constitution. What my church does about permitting or forbidding gay marriages is something else. Churches must govern their own lives according to their own terms.

But the law of the land must be big enough to cover everyone. No Canadian has to go to church. But all Canadians must live within the law. So our statutes should provide for everyone regardless of personal differences. Including sexuality.

Controversy over that distinction is not new to Western societies. The 19th century began with the British Parliament dividing over whether Roman Catholics (mostly Irish immigrants) should have the same civil rights as Anglicans. Next they had to wrangle over respecting the civil rights of Jews. A generation later, it was the right of an elected citizen to take his seat in Parliament without swearing loyalty to the Crown on his "faith as a Christian." Does that sound a real stretch? Charles Bradlaugh had to win his seat three times before the House of Commons would let him take the oath on nothing more than his own word.

But different as each of those controversies was from each other, their solution involved the same principle. Laws in a pluralistic society must embrace everyone. There is still a place for the sacred, but it is entered by personal choice. The secular is where all members of a society can live together. Accepting that distinction is fundamental to what Canadians have always prized -- the "peace, order and good government" that have been part of our Constitution since 1867.

Though we differ as individuals in so many ways, we share a common life together by mutually accepting those differences within the law. That should be respected as one of the roots of our constitutional tree that Preston Manning, in his article yesterday, called on Canadians to preserve.

As a Canadian, I don't have to agree with gays and lesbians. I don't have to approve their marrying. I just have to respect their right to do it and live their lives in a peaceful, open way. Showing that respect is something I should do for the common good, not just for the rights of gay and lesbian individuals. This country is a better place to live for all of us when we acknowledge we can be different without fighting about it. Or repressing it. Or even pretending it isn't there. That's not easy for some people. Deeply held moral values can motivate their wanting to use the arm of the law to advance them. But persuasion is morally better than coercion. Anyone who doesn't think so should look around the world.

Experience also teaches us that many of the fears people hold are not justified. In my own lifetime, Canadians have learned to live with a succession of changes in lifestyle, each one feared as the first step on a slippery slope. Yet we have remained "a peaceable kingdom," a place envied around the world by men and women eager to live where they can be free. Not so that they can wallow in sin. Just so that they can be themselves.

But that has not made Canada a wasteland of godlessness. We have opened up Sunday. We have decriminalized contraception, abortion and homosexual activity. We have given ready access to divorce and remarriage. In six provinces and one territory, we already have same-sex marriage. But we also have a vigorous spiritual life. If all the country's worship services are added together, they can still outdraw the total attendance at all our sports events -- even when the NHL is playing. So, as a Christian citizen, I am not going to urge my MP to vote "No." This country is the world's best place to live because we accommodate one another. The Fathers of Confederation showed it when they fashioned a Constitution that accepted differences. Our MPs can show it again.

Reginald Stackhouse, principal emeritus and research professor at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, is a former Conservative MP.

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