O Canada...

[Herman Beun]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Is er blijkbaar toch nog één beschaafd land in Noord-Amerika:

(New York Times, 18 juni 2003)

Canadian Leaders Agree to Propose Gay Marriage Law
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS


ORONTO, June 17 — The Canadian cabinet approved a new national policy
today to open marriage to gay couples, paving the way for Canada to
become the third country to allow same-sex unions.

"You have to look at history as an evolution of society," Prime Minister
Jean Chrétien told reporters after a meeting of his cabinet. "According
to the interpretation of the courts these unions should be legal in
Canada. We will ensure that our legislation includes and legally
recognizes the union of same-sex couples."

The decision to redefine marriage in Canada to include unions between
men and between women will immediately take effect in Ontario, Canada's
most populous province. Last week, the province's highest court ruled
that current federal marriage laws are discriminatory and therefore
unconstitutional.

Once aides to Mr. Chrétien draft the necessary legislation, the House of
Commons is expected to pass it into law in the next few months. Although
leaders of the two conservative parties and some Liberals have expressed
reservations, there is little organized opposition to such legislation,
and public opinion polls show a solid majority in favor of the change.

The policy opens the way for same-sex couples from the United States and
around the world to travel here to marry, since Canada has no marriage
residency requirements. In addition, gay-rights advocates in the United
States are already declaring that Canada will serve as a vivid example
to Americans that same-sex marriage is workable and offers no challenge
to traditional heterosexual family life.

No American state allows same-sex marriage, but Vermont has enacted a
law providing for civil unions, which allow gay couples many of the
benefits of marriage.

Canadian marriage licenses have always been accepted in the United
States, but now that the definition of marriage in the two countries
appears likely to diverge, legal challenges to same-sex couples claiming
rights and privileges deriving from their Canadian marriages seem
certain to arise in at least some states.

Issues including adoption rights, inheritance, insurance benefits and
matters as mundane as sharing health club memberships are likely to
arise in courts and state legislatures.

Canada's new marriage policy comes at a time when the government is also
pushing for legislation that would decriminalize the possession of small
amounts of marijuana, another policy that diverges sharply from American
federal practices.

Polling experts and social scientists note that conservative religious
views are much less influential here than in the United States, with
regular church attendance far lower and with fundamentalist Protestant
groups attracting far less support.

Mr. Chrétien said the government would also ask the Supreme Court for
advice to make the new legislation invulnerable to appeals by provincial
governments seeking to invalidate it in their jurisdictions.

However, the conservative premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein, has
threatened a legal fight to exclude his province from the new rules.

Gay-rights advocates celebrated the decision as a civil-rights
milestone.

"June 17 of 2003 is going to be a day gay and lesbian people remember
for a long, long time to come," said Svend Robinson, a gay member of the
House of Commons from the left-of-center New Democratic Party, in a
television interview immediately after the announcement.

Canada's action follows in the steps of the Netherlands and Belgium, but
it is likely to have a much larger impact on the United States. Only a
few American same-sex couples have taken advantage of expanded marriage
laws in the Netherlands because of its long residency requirement, and
Belgium will only allow marriages of foreign couples from countries that
already allow such unions. But Canada is nearby and has no such
restrictions.

"What this presents for American couples is an opportunity to easily
enter into a legal marriage and come back to the United States with a
powerful tool to break down the remaining discrimination here," said
Lavi Soloway, a Canadian-born lawyer and founder of the Lesbian and Gay
Immigration Rights Task Force in New York.

Mr. Soloway said Canada's marriage reform would go a long way to
changing public perceptions and attitudes in the United States, although
he added that the march to full acceptance would be slow.

"What we are in for is a long gradual struggle to win full equal
recognition of these marriages," he said.

Since the Ontario appeals court ruled last Tuesday in favor of same- sex
unions, only a few minor hurdles stand in the way of legalizing them
throughout Canada. Since the court decision last week, Ontario has
already issued 131 marriage licenses to same-sex couples, including four
from the United States.

The most important remaining step is a vote in the House of Commons
sometime in the next few months, one in which Mr. Chrétien said he will
allow Liberal members to vote their consciences.

Leaders of the Bloc Quebécois and the New Democratic Party have said
their members are solidly behind the change, and with a majority of
Liberals they should be able to enact the legislation easily despite
opposition from two conservative parties.

The Supreme Court, which has ruled repeatedly in favor of extending gay
rights, appears to support the efforts of the government to extend
marital rights.

"Every movement has its human rights milestones," said John Fisher,
director of advocacy for Égale Canada, a group that has been working for
same-sex marriage in the courts. "Just as the day women acquired the
right to vote, when racial segregation was ruled as unconstitutional, so
too, same-sex couples have finally acquired the right to marry."

To protect religious freedom, the cabinet decided that the planned
federal legislation would allow religious institutions to refuse to
conduct same-sex marriages.

A three-member panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal declared unanimously
last week that the definition of marriage as currently set by federal
government — as a union between a man and a woman — was invalid and must
be changed immediately to include same-sex couples.

It ruled that under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, roughly the
Canadian equivalent of the Bill of Rights, "the existing common-law
definition of marriage violates the couple's equality rights on the
basis of sexual orientation."

It added, "In doing so, it offends the dignity of persons in same-sex
relationships."

The ruling was similar in argument but more immediate in impact to two
previous decisions by provincial courts in Quebec and British Columbia.

Last year, the Quebec Superior Court ruled that the prohibition of
same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, and the British Columbia Court
of Appeal did likewise last month. They gave the federal government
until mid-2004 to change its marriage rules. Since then legislative
panels have been studying ways to put the rulings into effect.

Members of the Liberal federal cabinet overwhelmingly supported granting
same-sex couples marriage rights, but members were divided over whether
to legislate an immediate change or first to request guidance from the
federal Supreme Court. After hours of debate, the cabinet decided to do
both, hoping for the imprimatur of both government bodies to assure
maximum popular acceptance of the new law.

"I think on balance people recognize that the decisions of the courts
are really pointing in a direction from which it would be difficult — if
we wanted to — to turn back," said Deputy Prime Minister John Manley,
who is also a candidate to replace Prime Minister Chrétien as Liberal
Party leader later this year.



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Herman Beun                       http://www.hermanbeun.info/
Herman.Beun at yucom.be                      Brussel, Vlaanderen
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*representative democracy is a contradiction in 4 year terms*
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