I am no statistician but I am often intrigued by figures. There were some fascinating Statscan figures in the paper this morning, helping us make some sense of the state of matrimony in Canada.
I read that there are roughly three million married couples in Canada and about 7500 of those couples are same gender. Of course same gender marriage has only been around for a couple of years but to this point these 15000 people represent a small portion of one percent of married couples. By my math 99.75% of Canadian married couples are heterosexual. For those committed to the traditional view of marriage, there is obviously no need to be worried yet.
I am not raising this as a defense of same gender marriage, nor as a criticism. Certainly every Christian must make a prayerful decision about God's intention for marriage and fidelity within marriage. It does make me wonder about the gloom and doom proclaimed three years ago about the assault on marriage that same gender relationships would represent.
As I read the other statistics from the report it seemed to me that churches can have positive roles in supporting couples as they make their challenging way through life, including the raising of children.
We can also ponder our response to single parent families and those households where there is commitment but not legal marriage. Mainline churches such as the United Church tend to be mute or at least muffled on this subject, but our communities of faith can make a difference.
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