OTTAWA, ON—The Supreme Court of Canada’s same-sex marriage reference, released December 9, had enough surprises in it to give Christian advocates of male-female marriage some sense that they may not yet have lost the battle.

Early responses to the reference hinted that several options to a marriage redefinition could emerge when the issue is debated in parliament, likely in February and March. One, touted by people on both sides of the House of Commons, would be to encourage the government to abandon marriage definition language altogether, describing various kinds of two person domestic partnerships—including religious marriages—as “civil unions.”

The federal government had requested the non-binding reference following decisions by courts in seven provinces and territories to allow same-sex marriages.

In the reference, the high court said the government had the constitutional right to redefine marriage from “between a man and a woman” to “between two persons.” But there was no advice requiring it to do so.

Further, the justices declined to say whether the man-woman definition was unconstitutional.

The court noted that both equality and religious freedom flow from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In so doing, it suggested that “the protection of freedom of religion afforded by Section 2a of the Charter is broad and jealously guarded in our Charter jurisprudence.”

Many Christian and other groups had expressed fears that religious officials might be forced to solemnize same-sex marriages if the redefinition took place. The court appeared to take some pains to ease those concerns.

The “civil union” option began to emerge within hours of the release of the reference.

Both Conservative house leader John Reynolds and Liberal parliamentary secretary John McKay made mention of the civil union concept.

McKay’s comments came in a Parliament Hill scrum five hours after the release. He noted that, when the reference was first requested, he had urged justice officials to consider that option.

McKay is one of around a dozen current cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries who voted for the traditional definition of marriage, in a motion put by the official opposition in the fall of 2003.

McKay doubts whether there is enough political will on the government side to really pursue the civil union option.

For his part, Reynolds extolled the civil union solution as the way to create real equality, when interviewed on CTV’s “Question Period” on December 12. He suggested the civil union option would allow marriage definition to become, as it once was, a mainly religious matter.

The equality issue created by the Charter would come about through all unions being treated equally under the law, he added.

The civil union option has been floating close to the surface in recent months. Such well-known Christian thinkers as Citzens for Public Justice founder Gerald Vandezande and longtime political science professor John Redekop have suggested that civil unions—rather than marriage re-definition—would meet the equality measure.