Life and Family Issues PO Box 2085 Fall River, NS B2T 1K6 Presentation to the Parliamentary Justice Committee April 7th, 2003

 

 

 

Life and Family Issues of Nova Scotia thanks the Parliamentary Justice committee on justice for the opportunity to present our views on the discussion paper re: “Marriage and the Legal Recognition of other unions”.

 

Life and Family Issues is a core group of individuals from various religious and non-religious backgrounds, professionals and citizens, who recognize the intrinsic value of life, the societal interest and necessity for the protection and enhancement of the natural traditional family.

 

Kerby Anderson in a book “The Decline of a Nation”, points out, as does Will Durant in, “Lessons of History’’, that civilizations are born and then decline.  The problem is not due to political, economic or social problems but spiritual factors.  The symptoms are reflected however in economics, political and social areas of society.  Anderson goes on to point out that the average age of great civilizations is about 200 years.  Russian Harvard Sociologist Pitirim Sirokin has analyzed cultures spanning thousands of years on several continents and found that virtually all political revolutions that brought about societal collapse were preceded by sexual revolutions in which marriage and family were no longer accorded a premiere status. (from his book, The American Sex Revolution, 1956 pp 77-105

 

The declines were described in stages from bondage to a spiritual faith, from which grows courage, from courage to liberty followed by abundance then comes selfishness followed by complacency to apathy.  Final stages move from apathy to a moral decay, from moral decay to dependence, then finally from dependence to bondage.

Another observation is that of Greece and Roman empires, it has been said these nations fell from within and this is usually from a decline of the family and spiritual values. It appears that  in Rome’s case – decadence.^1a

 

Have you heard the phrase? “ For as the family goes, so too goes the nation.”

 

From noted British Historian J.D. Uwin¹  to Sociologist Sirokin,  described these empires including without exception [Roman, Greek, Moorish, Babylonian and Anglo-Saxon] flourished during eras that valued sexual fidelity.  Inevitably, sexual morès would loosen and the societies would subsequently decline, only to rise again when they returned to more rigid sexual standards.

 

Carl Wilson, in his book “Our Dance Has Turned to Death”, interestingly describes the stages with more clarity than others.  The first stage was when men ceased to lead their families in order to pursue wealth, politics or power. 

Material values begin to dominate thought. 

Then came the change in men’s sexual desires and values. 

Men who were preoccupied with business, war or power neglected their wives sexually and /or became involved with lower class women or homosexuality.  Ultimately, a double standard or morality developed. 

The fourth stage affected women, women at home and with children lost value and status.  They were neglected and devalued.  Soon they revolted to gain access to material wealth and also freedom for sex outside of marriage. 

Women began to minimize having sex relations to conceive children, and the emphasis became ‘sex for pleasure’. 

Marriage laws were changed to make divorce easy. 

Husbands and wives competed against each other for money, home leadership and the affection of their children. 

This resulted in hostility and frustration and possible homosexuality in the children.  Many marriages ended in separation and divorce. 

The last stage was selfish individualism that grew and carried over into society, fragmenting it into smaller and smaller groups of loyalties. 

The nation was weakened by this internal conflict. 

Decrease in the birthrate produced an older population that was and had less ability to defend itself and less a will to do so, and were easily defeated. 

Then came the dictator to save them and hence the cycle begins to repeat itself.

 

If these models are true, or even close to reality, one should ask, where do we fit on either of these models, given the current debate and the changes in our society during the past 30 years?

 

You’ve often heard I’m sure, the quip:

 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Families ARE the foundation of a nation, the societal microcosm – a reflection of the health of the larger society. When it crumbles, so will the nation.  Families have been organized and have developed naturally for the protection of children, hence our future.  It is this smaller community that makes up the larger community that ultimately form a nation for mutual governance for the common good.  Therefore the health of the family is a concern for the health of the nation.

 

Self-governing people require a robust culture founded on marriage and family, which nurture the qualities that permit self-rule; deferred gratification, self-sacrifice, respect for kinship and law, and property rights.  These qualities are founded upon sexual restraint, which permits people to pursue long-term interests, such as procreating and nurturing the next generation, and security for one’s children.

 

Definition of the Core of Society: The family represents this core! How?

 

·        Just as  ‘families have inherent and inviolable rights’, families make indispensable and irreplaceable contribution to the common good of society.

·        The family is the primary social unit.  It is society’s first school, first church, first medical clinic, first welfare agency, and first cultural center.  One might add the first community.

·        The family is society’s first school, wherein children receive their primary intellectual formation.

·        The family is society’s first church, wherein children receive their primary spiritual formation.

·        The family is society’s first medical clinic, wherein children receive their primary health care.

·        The family is society’s first welfare agency, wherein children receive their primary sustenance of food, shelter and clothing.

·        The family is society’s first culture center, wherein children receive their primary sense of how high the human imagination can reach.

·        The family is the first community, whereas children learn to co-operate and be tolerant of others and learn to adjust in a multi person environment.

·        In society, the family comes first, and government correspondingly must put family first.

 

First, last, and always, the family is the most important part of society.  The family is the first shelter for the helpless, the last refuge for the hopeless, and always the source of those ties of affection, recollection, and aspiration that bind the past, present and the future.

 

But then there is the push for dismantling and redfining the natural family and the defining characteristic of marriage.  One has to try understanding the agenda of those who are seemingly asking for change. One has to look behind the scenes and turn to studies that have asked basically the same question.  Such researchers are Dr. Judith Reisman, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, Kerby Anderson and a host of others who shed light on the subject.²  Excellent scholarly studies can be found in the Regent’s University Law Review. 

 

Then one has to read from some lead thinkers of the homosexual community, which want to push the envelope of rights to redefinition of family.  Activist such as Michelangelo Signorile (Activist), Andrew Sullivan (Editor “The Republic” and homosexual writer and his book  “Virtually Normal”) and Paula Ettelbrick, (Law Professor): Taken from a newsletter and special report by the Institute of Traditional Values, Anaheim, CA.

 

We read that accordingly, Signorile, writing in “Out” magazine, that traditional marriage is a “myth” and an “archaic institution” that must be altered.  Sullivan believes that homosexuals are not normal and must not be prohibited from engaging in sex with multiple partners.  Ettelbrick says homosexuality is all about pushing the limits of sexual activities as a way of reordering our culture and even our view of reality. 

 

Listening to advocates of same-sex marriages, they would have us believe that homosexuals are being denied civil rights because they cannot marry one another.  The fact that even such a notion is being considered in public debate, show just how demented our culture has become.

 

Homosexual couples can approximate marriage without all the fanfare, since they can have a Enduring Power of Attorney, a will, a contract for living together, hold property jointly, cohabitation agreement and other legal devices, which are available to all citizens.  So! why the fuss, could it be that agenda to destroy the traditional family that has been that solid footing for healthy nations?

 

Dr. William Bennett, PhD has written many articles, on such issues as moral clarity, family, justice, and books, such as, The Broken Hearth; Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family.

 

Bennett asserts for …  society to accept same-sex marriage would be to “accept that marriage is an arbitrary social construct that can be and should be pried apart from its cultural, biological, and religious underpinnings and redefined by anyone laying claim to it.”

 

Bennett believes that once same-sex marriage is legalized, it will open our culture to an unlimited number of other challenges, with many permutations and combinations.

 

Marriage has been the hallmark of family for centuries and once it has been altered to accommodate other forms of relationships, what will become of the family, as we know it today, where will it all end? What will it mean to society?

 

Why would some future court not allow marriage between sister and brother, or any other combination from natural families? Some would say that is being cynical and that would never happen.

 

Less than a decade ago, my MP and the government of the day told me that including ‘sexual orientation’ as protection from discrimination would not lead to the quest for same-sex marriages and adoptions.  He reiterated that the change would only affect employment, housing.

 

Already this legislation has lead to the discussion today that could redefine the family by ultimately recognizing homosexual marriage and adoption.  Further anyone who would oppose this arrangement would be tagged ‘homophobic’ as a tactic to silence many.

 

If the concept of same-sex marriage or domestic partnership is accepted, how long will the courts and politicians be able to resist, the acceptance of two brothers marrying, or limit this union to just two adults?  Silly notion some would say, it can never happen in Canada.

 

March 13^th, 2003 a case in London, Ontario a mother is asking a court to declare her same-sex partner a third parent.  Family court Justice David Aston stated in February, “I can’t imagine a stronger case for seeking the order you are seeking.”

 

Not only is the government seemly promoting such a thing, so too, the government controlled public press, and other media venues.  Makes one reflect on a comment by an American by the name of Abraham Lincoln in writing: 

 

“ In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything.  With it, nothing can fail against it nothing can succeed.  Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statues, or pronounces judicial decisions.”

 

Many people who are supportive of the traditional family find themselves at odds for the media, government are seemingly shaping public opinion on this issue. The traditional natural family cannot find a voice in the mainstream media. Is it a conspiracy? William Grieder (former assistant editor, Washington Post), thinks so, and make it clear that the publics suspicion about institutions, their parties and their government are well founded in his book  “Who will Tell the People.”-(1992)

 

What is the media’s role in all of this? is another well-documented subject by Dr. Judith Reisman; published in Regent’s University Law Review.

 

Another telling tale comes to us during he United Nations Bejiing conference for women, where the Canadian delegation put forth the idea that there are five genders. 

This, I assume means that gender is a social construct. 

Is this a government policy item, that there are five genders?  Even the American delegation to the conference had a problem with the number of genders in the human race and had to be reminded by their government that there are only two genders, one is male and the other is female.  None of this was reported in the media.

 

In Summary we recommend;

 

1. That our government leave the 5000 year institution alone called the family and let homosexuals do what they wish, but let’s not call it marriage.  Marriage as set out by parliament by the current definition is one significant way that a homosexual union and traditional marriage are different, so by legitimizing homosexual marriage and homosexual adoptions, there will no longer be a need to destroy the family, it will have been destroyed by redefinition with the help of parliament and the courts and a complicit media.
2. If the government moves to create something different to regulate or provide benefits to same-sex or homosexual relationships, it would be fitting to also make these same benefits available to family relationships that have interdependence.  It is surprising that this has not yet been challenged as an area of discrimination in provinces where same-sex benefit and partnership agreements or like arrangements are in place. We would have to wonder if Human Rights Commission’s would be open to hearing such cases.
3. Our contention is that if marriage is somehow marginalized or made mute, then the traditional concept of family will have been destroyed and important cornerstone of our society will have been weakened.  Leave it alone, reaffirm marriage and family do not redefine it.
4. In defense of marriage; Rather than repeat all that has likely been said to the committee, it should be suffice to say that we fully support others who agree that families benefit the nation by the raising of children and provide the best environment to do so, which has been born out by many unbiased scientific surveys and studies.
5. Government should move to giving support and tax breaks to families that are raising the next generation to whom we pass our culture.  Enhance and protect the natural traditional family.
6. Many arguments and decisions are coming from our ‘Charter of Rights’ based on individual and judicial interpretation do to a lack of parliamentary decision making, it may be necessary to go back and amend the charter, for families have to be protected and the best method is to continue with the affirmation of marriage with benefits and defined as it now stands..
7. We would recommend that the committee be open to studying the minor report of the State of Hawaii, on Sexual Orientation and the Law. ² In addition to the Regent University Law Review, which includes arguments relating to marriage, family, media and including the pathology of homosexuality. This information and stats are the most current, with exception of the past two or three years.

 

 

 Again I would like to remind the committee, ”That great civilizations are not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” 

 

Please say no to same-sex legalized marriages and yes to the support of marriages between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. 

 

Give good reason for families to continue and you’ll have done much to ensure that our country continues. 

 

Committed partners conjugal or otherwise have at their disposal legal devices to protect them, as mentioned earlier and this should be suffice to protect their property rights and disposition of assets in the event of break-up as it is with any couple, whether they are sexually active or not.

 

Our government should act as careful parents and have the courage to give us what we need and not pander to human weaknesses.

 

We thank the committee for the opportunity to present our views, while much more needs to be said, researched and discussed.  For now time will be our greatest enemy.

 

¹ The scholar J.D. Udwin published his study of 86 different historical societies in Sex and Culture.  In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continence.

 

^1a Decadence Everyone knows why the Roman Empire fell. It became "decadent," meaning weak and immoral. The Romans were so busy at their orgies (often with their siblings), throwing Christians to the lions, poisoning their spouses, parents, and children, and eating exotic parts of animals (in between visits to the vomitorium so they could eat more), that they didn't notice all the Germans gathering on the frontiers. Then the ruthless pagan Germans rode in, trampled under their horses's hooves the few poor debauched legionnaires who remained, still foolishly fighting on foot, sacked Rome, destroyed civilization, overthrew the last emperor in 476, and ushered in the Dark Ages, from which Europe only emerged with the Renaissance, a thousand years later, when gunpowder finally could defeat mounted warriors. As the columnist Joseph Sobran wrote recently: Christianity built a new civilization on the "ruins" of the old. The Later Roman Empire, 284-602 [The Johns Hopkins University Press

 

² Kerby Anderson is the president of Probe Ministries International. He received his B.S. from Oregon State University, M.F.S. from Yale University, and M.A. from Georgetown University. He is the author of several books, including Genetic Engineering, Origin Science, Living Ethically in the 90s, Signs of Warning, Signs of Hope, and Moral Dilemmas. He also served as general editor for Marriage, Family and Sexuality.

 

Dr. Reisman is president of The Institute for Media Education, author of the U.S. Department of Justice, Juvenile Justice study, Images of Children, Crime and Violence in Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler (1989), Kinsey, Sex and Fraud (Reisman, et al., 1990) and Soft Porn Plays Hardball (1991), Partner Solicitation Language as a Reflection of Male Sexual Orientation (w/Johnson, 1995), and Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences (1998, 2000) and is a news commentator for WorldNetDaily.com.

Dr. Jeffrey Satinover is a former Fellow in Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry at Yale University and the past president of the C.G. Jung Foundation.  He holds degrees from MIT, the University of Texas, and Harvard University and serves as a medical advisor to Focus on the Family.  Jeffrey Satinover and his wife have three children.

Dr. William (Bill) Bennett is a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and co-director of Empower America.  He hold a B.A. degree in philosophy from Williams College, a PhD.,  in political philosophy from the University of Texas, and a law degree from Harvard.  Dr. Bennett served as President Reagan’s Chairman of the Humanities and Secretary of Education, and President’s Bush’s “drug Czar.”  He also has written and edited 12 books – including The Book of Virtues, The children’s Book of Virtues, and The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, which hit number one on The New York Times best seller list.

³ http://www.state.hi.us/lrb/rpts95/sol/cpta.html  ( Two sections with two sections of footnotes)

http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/lawreview/issues/v14n2.html  (excellent scholarly review synopsis follows)

Fairness, Accuracy and Honesty in Discussing Homosexuality and Marriage, by Lynne Marie Kohm & Mark A. Yarhouse, is an introduction to this issue and ties in the social science articles with the law. 
 

Studies of Homosexual Parenting: A Critical Review, by George Rekers & Mark Kilgus, illuminates the flaws of the leading social science studies on
homosexual parenting and child development that are relied upon by courts, legislators, and lawyers in advocating homosexual adoption of children. 

Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement, by Steve Baldwin, 
addresses several recent attacks on our society driven by the homosexual movement.  From the international campaign to lower or remove age of consent laws, to the recent assault on the Boy Scouts of America, homosexuals are waging an all out campaign to normalize homosexuality.  
 

Crafting Bi/Homosexual Youth, by Judith Reisman, exposes fraudulent sex scientists and sex education; and discusses the power and effect the media and gay rights organizations have on "turning" children gay. This articles presents undeniable proof that homosexuals are after the hearts and minds of the nation's children.  
 

Selling Homosexuality to America,  by Paul Rondeau, explores how gay rights activists use rhetoric, psychology, social psychology, and the media–all the elements of modern marketing–to position homosexuality in order to frame what is discussed in the public arena and how it is discussed.  
 

Homosexuality:  Innate and Immutable?, by Dean Byrd & Stony Olsen, 
challenges the research that purports to prove that homosexuality is 
biologically determined.  
 

Why NARTH?  The American Psychiatric Association’s Destructive and Blind Pursuit of Political Correctness,  by Ben Kaufman, exposes the political influence of gay rights activists in the APA's decision to redefine homosexuality from a disorder, and the way this unscientific decision is used as propaganda to further gay rights objectives.
 

Gay Orthodoxy and Academic Heresy, by Ty Clevenger, reveals the controversy behind the Stanford Law & Public Policy Review's rejection of every article that questioned or criticized orthodox gay rights views.
 

Defending Marriage:  A Litigation Strategy to Oppose Same-sex "Marriage", by Dale Schowengerdt, suggests strategies that may be employed by those seeking to defeat the homosexual lobby in order to uphold the traditional view of marriage.
 

Related Article:

Hitting Below the Belt: Sex-ploitive Ideology & the Disaggregation of Sex and Gender, by David Mundy, from Vol. 14, N. 1, of the Regent University Law Review, argues that "sex" should be defined objectively rather than by someone's subjective gender identity.

Contact the Standing Committeee on Justice and Human Rights

 

Committee Chair:The Hon. Andy Scott (Liberal)Fredericton, 506-452-4110,
Ottawa: 613-992-1067, Fax: 613-996-9955, email: Scott.A@parl.gc.ca

 

Vice-Chair:John McKay(Liberal)Scarborough East: Riding: 416-283-1226,
Ottawa: 613-992-1447, Fax: 613-992-8968, Email: McKay.J@parl.gc.ca

Patrice Martin, Clerk

martipa@parl.gc.ca  Fax (613) 992 9069  Tel (613) 996 1553 

180, Wellington St., Room 622

Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6

The Hon. Hedy Fry(Liberal)Vancouver Centre: Riding: 604-666-0135, Ottawa:
613-992-3213, Fax: 613-995-0056, Email: Fry.H@parl.gc.ca

Irwin Cotler(Liberal)Mount Royal: Riding: 514-736-0101, Ottawa:
613-995-0121, Fax: 613-992-6762, Email: Cotler.I@parl.gc.ca

Derek Lee(Liberal)Scarborough-Rouge River: Riding: 416-298-4224, Ottawa:
613-996-9681, Fax: 613-996-6643, Email: Lee.D@parl.gc.ca
 
Paul Macklin(Liberal)Northumberland: Rding: 905-372-8757, Ottawa:
613-992-8585, Fax: 613-995-7536, Email: Macklin.P@parl.gc.ca
 
Marlene Jennings(Liberal)Notre-Dame de Grace: Riding: 514-489-8703, Ottawa:
613-995-2254, Fax: 613-996-1481, Email:  Jennings.M@parl.gc.ca
 
Joe Peschisolido(Liberal)Richmond: Riding: 604-666-7327, Ottawa:
613-995-2021, Fax: 613-995-2174, Email: Peschisolido.J@parl.gc.ca
 
John Maloney(Liberal)Erie-Lincoln: Riding: 905-835-5454, Ottawa:
613-995-0988, Fax: 613-995-5245, Email: Maloney.J@parl.gc.ca

Pat O'Brien (Liberal)London-Fanshawe: Riding: 519-685-4745, Ottawa:
613-995-2901, Fax: 613-943-8717, Email: Obrien.P@parl.gc.ca

Mr. Peter MacKay , PC   MackaP@parl.gc.ca
 
 Mr. Gary Breitkreuz, CA       BreitG1@parl.gc.ca

Mr. Vic Toews, CA   toewsv1@mts.net

Mr. Chuck Cadman, CA

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Mr. Robert Lanctot, BQ

Mr. Richard Marceau, BQ

Mr. Loren Nystrom, NDP