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the other press e Barbarak.fdamski e opfeatures@netscape.net

October 15, 2003

 

One Family, Four Live

Perspectives on same-sex marriages

Zoé Bake-Paterson
Features Bureau

VICTORIA (CUP)—It was a nine-year-old child
who really put the issue into perspective.

“This idea of legalizing gay marriages, it’s really an
issue of legalizing gay people,” said this child to me. I
was volunteering at a summer camp and had forgot-
ten that some children like to read everything, includ-
ing the news. When I said I didn’t quite understand,
she explained it like this: if it’s not legal, then it must
be illegal. Gay people are illegal because the only way
they’re really different is because of who they want to
marty.

This was her theory.

I had no answer, for as black-and-white as her
explanation was, as innocent and simple, she had a
point. The only real difference between homosexual
and heterosexual people is the sex thing: the intimate
relationship between two people. Otherwise, we're all
pretty much the same.

It is not often that “the church” (religious groups,
usually Christian) and “the state” (federal govern-
ment) butt heads. In fact, the last time I remember it
occurring so intensely in the media was in 1992, fol-
lowing the ordination of an openly gay reverend in
the United Church of Canada. When it does happen,
it seems to happen with a vengeance and just about
everybody has an opinion on the subject.

Take the issue of ordaining an openly gay man as a
minister. Twenty years after it was first suggested and
ten years after it happened, the issue is still reverber-
ating through my life.

Last spring I was sitting with a new friend, an
acquaintance really, and started talking family. After
pondering the philo-
sophical elements of
our individual

“The very fact that gay

me, it’s a pretty big deal. A family left their faith, their
community, their place of worship because a man
they had never met, who lived a province away, want-
ed to be himself while he worked for God.

It is 2003 now, and the head butting is back. This
time, the issue is over the legalization of same-sex
marriages.

There are a lot of different groups shouting their
opinions out in the media right now: right-wing big-
ots, religious groups, gay liberation/rights groups,
political parties, and of course the Supreme Court of
Canada. Blame passes from group to group, letters
and interviews reference religious texts about the sin
of homosexuality (one man even wrote to Maclean’
magazine saying the forest fires in the BC were God’s
response to the issue) and citizens criticize the closed-
minded homophobia they see in others. A lot of
words like “normal,” “natural,” and “tradition” are
thrown about, marking what is considered acceptable
and not.

What's curious is that hardly anyone asks what gay
and lesbian people think of the whole issue. Sex and
politics have never been easy subjects: gay or straight,
they carry the baggage of personal beliefs and experi-

ence.

The Politico

“T agree with (legalizing same-sex marriage). A bit sur-
prised that it’s coming as quickly as it is, but it’s the
latest in a whole string of victories of equality,” says
Reverend Tim Stevenson, now a city councillor for
the City of Vancouver. Compared to his life ten or 20
years ago, Stevenson
feels that equality has

come a long way. “I

upbringing, we discov- people Want to marry reaf- look back in my life-

ered that both of us

had been brought up firms marriage. After the

in the United Church.
Casually, he explained

that it war a thing of @LvOrce rate is 5O percent

his past, as he and his

time, we've come so far,
so fast. I never in my
wildest dreams thought
that.”

Stevenson is well
known for contributing

family had left the and common-law marriage to the gains won by

church in the early 90s

homosexual people. In

because the church 1 § rising, if somneone wan ts addition to his decades

decided to ordain gays.
In particular, they left
after one gay man had
been ordained. There
was a pause in conver-
sation then, a moment
of realization for me.
For that man who
caused my friend to leave the church, Reverend Tim
Stevenson, the first openly gay minister in Canada, is
one of my fathers.

“My dad left the church because of your dad! Ha,
ha,” was his jovial response to my news, something
that sounded like a schoolyard taunt. Ha, ha, ha. He
laughed and I did too; it was a coincidental intersec-
tion of our lives. It was funny, in an ironic way, but
later I cried.

My father was the reason his dad left the church. To

TSS Page 18  http://www.otherpress.ca

to get married, Praise the

of community-based
involvement in the gay
and lesbian communi-

he was the first

bora! Gary Paterson, Srensy gry ontined
Minister

minister in Canada, the
first gay Member of
Legislative Assembly
(MLA) in British Columbia in 1996, and the first gay
provincial cabinet minister.

“Nowadays,” he says this issue is “hugely symbolic
in the papers, in the news.” He believes that young
people will see the media and think “My God! Society
recognizes me. The situation has changed a lot, but
homophobia runs deep in this society. We have a long
way to go...My dream is that in generations to come,
whether you are gay or straight, that it'll be like being
right- or left-handed. That kids will be able to date,

   

be free to say ‘I’m gay’ and date. That people don’t
think youre a pariah.”

Coming out in the late 70s, you couldn’t say any-
thing then, so, I made a conscious decision to get
involved in the gay liberation movement.” Following
that he became the president of GayUBC and found-
ed Gay Week on campus in 1980—an event that con-
tinues across Canada, usually around National
Coming Out Day on October 11. “Sometimes people
ask me if I would rather be straight, and I say ‘never,’
because now I am true to myself.”

The Minister

“I see no real justification, legally or religiously, why
two people of the same gender should be excluded. A
number of different ideas of marriage have been
accepted through time,” says Gary Paterson, an open-
ly gay minister at Ryerson United Church in
Vancouver, BC.

“I see our heart and genitals as being hard-wired. I
think to separate them, to use genitals only for fun,
youll eventually damage your heart, psyche, soul,
well-being...this is not a moral thing or a health
thing,” he adds. “With marriage, we're trying to build
something: a unity, a connection between two peo-
ple.”

For Paterson, the question is, “how do we best sup-
port relationships that give life to individuals and life
and stability to society?” He sees marriage as a con-
servative idea for the gay community, something that
radical gay people may oppose as it reinforces the het-
erosexual institution of marriage.

“It counters public gay culture: promiscuity, fast-
living, good looks. That can be true, but now, okay,
there’s marriage. There is much less imagery of what
happens to gay couples when they settle down.
Marriage is just one way of raising public awareness to
expressions of gay commitment. I think youth will be
heartened by that.”

Indeed, Paterson has a lot to say about youth, not-
ing that while it is never easy for one to say that they
are different, especially in their teen years when iden-
tities are still being formed, the more affirmations in
society the better.

“T don’t see a lot of university students getting mar-
ried, but this allows future dreams. There is a place
(for gay people) to be acceptable. It gives hope in the
process of accepting orientation.

“I honestly cannot comprehend why people are so
vehement, so scared of homosexuals,” he says. “The
very fact that gay people want to marry reaffirms mar-
riage. After the divorce rate is 50 percent and com-
mon law marriage is rising, if someone wants to get
married, Praise the Lord!”

But the hatred is very real, he says, especially from
the public response over same-sex marriages. The
things people say, in letters or interviews, can get
“quite ugly.”

“Thank God there’s a legal system to protect us. If
we were turned over to the public, I think theyd
string us up. It was done in the past: burning faggots,
jail time, hospitalization, or being fired (school teach-
ers, soldiers, politicians...). It scares me and it angers