Canada Dry Rot
It’s Not Just Canadian Courts That Are to Blame
by Rory Leishman
What has gone wrong in Canada? Who is responsible for transforming this once democratic country into a state where anyone who publicly defends the traditional definition of marriage as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others faces possible judicial persecution?
The Evolving UCC
Canada’s mainline Protestant churches bear much of the blame. Consider the rapidly evolving positions on sexual morality adopted by the United Church of Canada (UCC), a once-traditional church formed in 1925 by a merger of Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians. Despite having lost close to one-quarter of its members since 1981, it remains Canada’s largest Protestant denomination.
As recently as 1960, the church’s ruling general council described homosexual activity as sinful because
It violates the will of God as an offence against the proper expression of sexuality in monogamous marriage; by misuse of natural functions, homosexual activity is a sin against the self; since it involves at least one other person of the same sex, with or without his consent, homosexual activity is unedifying and destructive of “neighbour love”; it tends to undermine the foundations of stable society based on heterosexual marriage and family responsibility.
Since then, the UCC has abandoned this traditional teaching. In 1980, its Division of Mission in Canada suggested, in a report entitled “In God’s Image . . . Male and Female,” that fidelity within marriage might include “openness to secondary relationships of emotional intimacy and potential genital expression.”
In 1984, this same division confessed: “The church has too readily accepted marriage as the norm for society and so has not valued single persons for themselves or . . . allowed them the opportunity of sexual fulfilment.” And in 1988, the General Council cleared the way for the ordination of sexually active homosexuals.
Finally, in 2000, the General Council formally renounced the 1960 statement that homosexuality is a sin; declared that “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered as well as heterosexual orientations are gifts from God, part of the marvellous diversity of creation”; and called upon the church to “affirm lesbian and gay partnerships, recognize them in church documentation and services of blessing, and actively work for their civil recognition.” In conformity with this policy, the leadership of the UCC also urged the Martin government to legalize same-sex marriage.
The Declining ACC
Rory Leishman is a former lecturer in political science at the University of Western Ontario and national affairs columnist for the London Free Press. Now a freelancer, he writes a regular column for the Interim: Canada's Life and Family Newspaper.
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