Thursday, June 30, 2005

Unanswered Questions About Same-Sex Marriage

1. Bill C-38 has extended the Prohibited Degrees of Marriage Act, which bars consanguineous marriage, to include same-sex couples. The principal reason for that Act was to prevent incestuous marriages from producing genetically defective offspring. This can't happen with a same-sex couple. So why maintain the prohibition?

2. Failure to consummate the marriage is grounds for annulment in all jurisdictions. Not to be crude, but what acts would constitute consummation of a same-sex union?

3. Mistake of identity is also grounds for annulment. If a man marries someone he thinks is a woman but who turns out to be a man, how does he demonstrate mistake of identity, since the marriage cannot be annulled by mistake of gender alone?

4. Although adultery has now been subsumed into marriage breakdown in the Divorce Act as grounds for divorce, adultery can still be claimed in a petition for divorce. What will constitute adultery in a same-sex union?

5. If other laws affecting marriage end up being changed to accomodate the different circumstances of same-sex couples, should opposite-sex couple be able to take advantage of these changes, given that there would be no difference at law between the two?

6. Doesn't anyone realize that the state is now more intimately involved in the bedrooms of the nation because of the same-sex marriage law than ever before?

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