Gwen Landolt opposes Wynne government’s redefining family relationships.
Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government introduced Bill 28, the “All Families Are Equal Act,” which, if passed, will legally redefine “mother” and “father” as “parent” to accommodate homosexual couples who adopt or conceive children through artificial means.
REAL Women vice president Gwen Landolt criticized the Ontario government for “ramming through a revolutionary bill to completely restructure ‘family’ relationships solely to please the LGBT community.” Landolt said in REAL Women’s critique of Bill 28 that it “completely turns on its head the former understanding of ‘family’ which consisted of individuals united by marriage, blood and adoption.”
Attorney General Yasir Naqvi told the legislature on Oct. 3 during second reading, “I don’t think there’s any debate about this issue.”
But at committee hearings two weeks later, Charles McVety of Canada Christian College and Queenie Yu, an outspoken critic of the government’s sex-ed, reiterated many of Landolt’s points.
Two Progressive Conservative MPPS, Bill Walker (Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound) and Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington), charged the government with shutting down debate and ramming through the bill.
Among the other concerns raised in Landolt’s critique of the 66-page Bill 28: a child may have four parents so that a partner in a same-sex relationship could become a parent automatically, without adoption, despite not having any blood ties to the child; sperm donors will not be considered a parent of a conceived child; and mother and father will no longer be listed on birth certificates.
Landolt also warned that Bill 28 “does not address practical details such as the custody and support of the child,” which makes it “extremely difficult to determine who is on first base in regard to the child,” she pointed out. She said lawyers stand to benefit from the litigation the new law would invite to family conflicts: “lawyers will be pleased with this bill.”
