Changing the definition of "Spouse"

The Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly is in the process of "updating" official laws which define spouse as someone of the opposite sex. This is largely administrative at this point, but marks a disturbing situation in our province and country.

The Bill for this Amendment officially declares:

This Bill would amend various of the province's Acts and regulations to reflect recent developments in the law respecting spouses. The principal thrust of the amendments is to change the language of provisions that currently, either explicitly or implicitly, assume that spouses must be members of the opposite sex.

Any time where there is mention of husband and wife, or the father and mother, male and female, man and woman, will be replaced with generic terms like spouses or couple or two parental units. It's ludacris to think we can change an institution by simply applying new language. There is no "romance" to these changes. A man loves his wife, not a spouse loves the other spouse. It sounds like a business contract.

I believe Canada has traveled down a terrible road. I hesitate to use a slippery slope argument, but I believe the more we treat marriage as a contractual partnership of two persons, you start to lose the real meaning of marriage. It is no longer about complementary love, but more about two people signing a piece of paper to share societal benefits. Once civil marriage becomes nothing more than a legal contract of two entities joining together for some economic reason, it won't be long before other "unions" will be accepted.

Today represents a sad day in legal history.