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Article: Is marriage protected under the constitution?
- Article from:
- Catholic Insight
- Article date:
- September 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Catholic Insight. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"Is a constitutional amendment required to change the common law definition of marriage, or can a reformulation be accomplished by Parliament or the courts?" This is one of the six questions that the Court of Appeal for Ontario (CAO) raised in making its judgement on the same-sex dispute. This question is framed because the Association for Marriage and Family in Ontario argued that the legal definition of marriage--the union of one man and one woman is a constitutionally entrenched term, defined in the Constitution Act/1867. In other words, neither Parliament nor the courts have jurisdiction to reformulate the meaning of marriage.
The Court of Appeal's reasoning ...