"The State has no business in the bedrooms of the nation." So spake Pierre Elliott Trudeau, former Minister of Justice and later Prime Minister of Canada, defending his newly introduced Charter of Rights and Freedoms against charges that it removed the practice of homosexuality from the Criminal Code.

He did not say, nor has it ever been established, that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms conferred legitimacy on "marriages" between practicing homosexuals and lesbians. Those groups have launched a campaign to have the State confer such a right on unions they may contract of their own free will with the sanction of some civil and some religious authorities. That campaign is now gripping the attention of Canada's federal legislators, and is expected to be a key issue for debate and decision when Parliament resumes sitting on Monday, January 1, 2005.

It is a matter to be determined on two fronts, individual conscience and political party loyalty; in blunt terms, between legislators who believe in freedom to exercise their own judgment and those who cling to the concept of "my party, right or wrong".

Blind acceptance of the Charter as conferring an unwritten right on all entering same-sex unions to recognition as being "married" has no place in the framework of the nation. The basic building block of a nation state is the family. It is the family which procreates, which supplies the ongoing living future of a nation state. If and until a time arrives when two men living in a union, or two women living in a union, can produce families, they of their own free will sever themselves from a nation's future.

Accept their wishes to live their chosen life styles. Respect their claim to receive state benefits. Recognize their unions.

To confer the status of marriage on those unions is a step too far.

Legislators are called on to make their positions clear. Individual conscience or party loyalty? Waffling is not an option.

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