A Blow To Canada's Families

'We've had gay and lesbian marriages in six provinces for almost a year and society hasn't collapsed." So said NDP MP Bill Siksay in the House of Commons last week. You have to wonder: Isn't that setting the policy bar a little low? Normally, we expect a new government idea to pass a higher threshold than, "It didn't cause an utter catastrophe during its first few months in operation."

Same-sex marriage has now been grafted into the Canadian constitution; very shortly it will be legislated into Canadian law. But before Canadians accept Mr. Siksay's "What, me worry?" point of view, they might want to wait for the answers to some urgent questions:

- Did homosexuals ever really want to marry in the first place?

There are about 24 million Canadians between the ages of 18 and 65. It's a reasonable guess that about 750,000 of them are gay.

In June and July 2003, the two largest English-speaking provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, began issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples. Within the first six months, some 300 Canadian same-sex couples had been married in B.C. Within the first year, about 4,000 Canadian same-sex couples had been married in Ontario.

Since then, the number of same-sex marriages seems to have dropped off. National statistics are hard to come by, but it's a good guess that 18 months after same-sex marriage arrived in Canada, some 98% of adult Canadian gays have chosen to ignore their new legal right.

- Will same-sex marriage damage the institution of marriage generally?

Forty years ago, Canadian men and women faced one choice: Get married or stay single. Unsurprisingly, most of them chose to get married. Today, Canadians can choose from a proliferating menu of lifestyle options. Next year, there will be one more: a new form of marriage recognized by the government but condemned by every major religion in Canada.

As alternatives to traditional marriage multiply, the proportion of Canadians choosing marriage has declined. The Vanier Institute of the Family reports that 65% of Canadians could expect to be married by age 50 in 1981. Today, only 51% of women and 48% of men can expect as much. (Why the gap? Men are more likely to remarry after a divorce than women -- so some of the male 48% are marrying twice.)

It is not fashionable to say so, but this decline presents a very serious social problem. Single people and people in nontraditional relationships are more likely to be poor, to get sick, and to need help from the government than married people. Cohabiting women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence than married women; single men are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than married men.

If Mr. Siksay is right, the move to a redefinition of marriage should not make these problems significantly worse. Well -- we'll see, won't we?

- Will the weakening of marriage harm Canadian children -- and Canadian society?

When marriage declines, children lose. Children who grow up with their biological mother and biological father are dramatically -- that is by margins from 50% to 300% -- less likely to break the law, drop out of school, get pregnant in their teens and end up as single parents themselves than children raised by single parents or in stepfamilies. Today, after three decades of anti-family policy, a Canadian child's odds of reaching age 18 in the same home as his or her father and mother are less than 50-50.

As if recognizing that Canada is becoming an inhospitable place for children, Canadian women are giving birth to fewer and fewer of them. Historically, Canadian and American birthrates have tracked each other pretty closely. And even today, Canadian and American women express a desire for about the same number of children: an average of 2.2, according to surveys. Yet while the U.S. fertility rate has been rising, to almost 2.1, Canada's has plunged to 1.5 -- not nearly enough to replace the existing population.

Canada has spent the past decade reinventing marriage in ways that do not address any of its family problems -- and will very likely aggravate them. The harm done to Canadian family policy might just possibly have been justifiable if it were necessary to protect some endangered minority. But it turns out that the same-sex marriage was of only very theoretical concern to gay Canadians: Canada will soon have same-sex marriage, but it is likely to see very few same-sex marriages.

Is it too early to conclude that this whole debate has been a very destructive diversion? Since 1980, Canada has made policy choices that have brought about a plunging birthrate, deteriorating home conditions for children and instability in domestic partnerships among adults, with all the attendant problems of poverty, illness, dependency and violence. Open discussion of these choices is made impossible by a climate of denial.

Mr. Siksay is right to say that Canadian society has not collapsed, not yet anyway. But the ability of Canada's governing elite to think rationally and talk honestly about priorities sure has.