HOMOSEXUAL CASE IN SUPREME COURT

TORONTO, Mar 18 (LSN)  The media is predicting radical consequences from a Supreme Court hearing beginning today on the right of homosexual couples to seek spousal support after termination of the relationship. Newspapers such as the Globe and Mail indicated that the “new reading of spouse (the court comes up with) could invalidate scores of Ontario laws (and) redefine family.”“The Supreme Court appears poised to either set back the cause of gay rights or force governments across the country to rewrite their laws to extend equality to gays and lesbians,” the paper suggested.  An “Interfaith Coalition” consisting of The Ontario Council of Sikhs, The Islamic Society of North America, Focus on the Family Canada and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC)  will appear before the court today to urge that the opposite-sex definition of “spouse” be maintained.  Bruce Clemenger, EFC’s Director of National Affairs, noted that the term spouse “is rooted in a sociological and biological reality that heterosexual conjugal relationships are uniquely able to procreate and thereby face economic burdens in the bearing and raising of children.”“If the definition of spouse is expanded to include same-sex couples, then there is no legal or rational basis to exclude domestic partnerships between siblings, relatives or friends which are based on emotional support and economic dependence,” he said, “[and such] an expansion of the category of spouse would render it useless in addressing the legitimate needs of heterosexual spouses.”