The Oakville Beaver
Saturday, July 31, 2004
By Craig MacBride
It was only a matter of time.
Just a year and a month after same-sex couples were awarded the right to marry, they are trying to do what half of all married couples do – get divorced.
As was recently reported, two women, known only as M.M. and J.H., are hoping to legally split their lives, and their belongings, making them the first Canadian gay couple to do so. The only thing standing in their way is the Divorce Act, which rightly doesn’t account for gay couples.
In the interest of the nation, and of everything our flag stands for, we all must band together and protect, at any cost, the traditional definition of divorce.
After all, once the sanctity of divorce is tarnished, once the gay divorcee is no longer just a 1930s Cole Porter musical, what will come next?
Divorces for incestuous couples? Divorces for pets? Where does the madness end?
And if the nation does decide to obstruct God’s will and recognize gay divorces, are religious institutions going to be forced to endorse this blatant deviation from nature?
Don’t get me wrong, I think gay people should be able to act like straight people if they like, but that doesn’t mean straight people should have to give up an institution that has been theirs in the Western World since the 17th Century.
So, instead of allowing gay people to degrade our sacred institutions and steal our words, we need to find an alternative that suits all involved. Civil separations, for example, should be a fair compromise. With civil separations, gay couples will have all the benefits, as well as the soul-destroying emotional trauma, that straight couples cherish, without alienating straight couples with the every-increasing encroachment of the gay agenda on their lifestyle. It does make perfect sense, if you think about it.
It is a classic battle of common sense versus idealism, and like in most such cases, common sense should win.
Sure, it would be nice if all couples could be treated equally, but there are larger problems to worry about. If the Divorce Act is changed to accommodate M.M. and J.H., there will be hundreds, and then thousands of gay couples just like them lining up for divorce papers, and straight couples will become so disillusioned with divorce, which would be entirely void of meaning, that they would simply stay together and work out their differences. That’s just the stone in the pond, though. The ripples that will span from the epicenter could send our economy into a tailspin.
For example, with fewer bald men trying to regain the advantage of youth, the hair colouring and hair replacement industries would recede like so many hairlines. Food companies that create single-portion meals would be finished in less time than it takes to microwave pre-prepared fettuccine. Sales of motorcycles and motorcycle accessories, as well as sports cars, would ride off into the sunset as men in the throes of midlife crises would stick with the women who won’t let them buy such toys. Also, those companies that sell that particular shade of lipstick that divorcees wear as overcompensation for their flagging femininity would be in the red.
Unless we can convince the courts, and our parliamentarians, to fight to save the sanctity of divorce, all of this will become our reality.
How many community groups have to vanish because people no longer need family-replacements, how many video stores have to swallow the cost of unrented Meg Ryan movies, how many bottles of wine have to remain corked before we stand up and fight for what is rightfully ours?
Let us uncork those bottles, let us marvel at Meg Ryan’s perpetual adorability, and let us join knitting clubs, because as long as straight couples grow to despise or become bored of one another, and as long as men want to court their secretaries, they should have the freedom and the right to feel that divorce is there for them, and has not been inconsiderately and hatefully degraded by homosexuals.