The Canadian Unitarian Council hails the recent statement from the Canadian Psychological Association that children raised by gay parents show almost no differences from other children. For decades, Unitarians have practiced what CPA president  Dr. Patrick O'Neill  recommended, when he said that all children deserve to feel that society accepts and recognizes their families. "Marriage also provides protection for the care and inheritance of their children in the case of the death of one of the parents," said Elizabeth Bowen, president of the CUC. "Gay couples married by Unitarian clergy have told us that they and their children feel much more secure when their union has legal recognition."

The Canadian Unitarian Council joins with Liberal Rabbis, Quakers, and the United Church of Canada in endorsing the proposed redefinition of marriage, which would allow their clergy the religious freedom to perform legal marriage ceremonies for their gay members (male and female). As upholders of religious freedom, Unitarians commend the way that the proposed legislation explicitly protects the freedom of any clergy to decline any union of which they do not approve.

For decades, Unitarian clergy have been called upon to perform marriage ceremonies for people whom some other clergy turned away due to the mixed nature of the proposed union (e.g., Catholic-Protestant, Jew-Gentile, and earlier White-Black). "Really, the greatest barrier that children of those unions faced was social intolerance of their parents' marriages," said Bowen. Unitarian clergy and lay chaplains in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec have been pleased to be able to extend their ministry to yet another category which has been the subject of prejudice: same-sex couples.

The CUC strongly urges the Supreme Court of Canada to support the concept of equal marriage rights for all couples in Canada, regardless of sexual orientation. "We urge the Justices not to be led astray by proposals of apartheid in the form of 'civil unions' for certain couples," said Bowen.

The Canadian Unitarian Council/Conseil unitarien du Canada (CUC), is an association of forty-four congregations located across Canada with 5,200 individual members. Arising out of the work of outspoken reformers and dissenters within the Christian tradition  five centuries ago, the Unitarian movement today includes Universalists and flows in a broad religious stream augmented by Humanist, earth-centred, Buddhist and other progressive beliefs.

For more information, contact: J McRee Elrod: mac@slc.bc.ca (250) 474-3361; fax (250) 474-3362