Sebastian White :: Canada Legalizes Gay Marriage

NEWS

Canada Legalizes Gay Marriage

The Empty Closet | June 29, 2005
By Sebastian White

OTTAWA, July 28—Thirty-six years after a flamboyant, famously womanizing prime minister named Pierre Elliott Trudeau decriminalized homosexuality in Canada by declaring, “the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation,” America’s neighbor to the north this week joined Belgium and the Netherlands in becoming one of only three nations in the world to fully legalize same-sex marriage.

In a much-anticipated vote late Tuesday, Prime Minister Paul Martin and his governing Liberal Party succeeded in passing their controversial civil marriage bill five months after its introduction in the House of Commons by a healthy 158 to 133 margin thanks to an alliance with members of the left-leaning New Democratic Party and the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

“We're a nation of minorities,” the prime minister said prior to the vote, “and in a nation of minorities you don't cherry-pick rights.”

“A right is a right and that is what this vote tonight is all about,” he said.

The legislation, which goes into effect after rubberstamping by the Liberal-dominated Senate, extends to gay and lesbian couples the many legal, financial, adoption, and immigration rights currently afforded couples of the opposite sex and brings full equality to the four provinces and northern territories where same-sex nuptials had not already been legalized.

Last week, New Brunswick became the ninth jurisdiction to legalize such unions, following a trend that began in 2003 when a lower court in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, struck down legal barriers to marriage for a gay couple in Toronto. Since then, laws against same-sex marriage have been rolled back from Newfoundland to British Columbia, giving approximately 90% of Canada’s citizens the legal right to marry.

Tuesday’s show of support for the equal rights of gay and lesbian couples capped off months of protracted debate on Parliament Hill in Ottawa that has pit the Liberals—who consider such rights a matter of civil equality, protected under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms—against staunchly committed foes, most notably the Conservative Party, whose leader Stephen Harper has argued for a traditional definition of marriage or for putting the question to a national referendum.

“There will be a chance to revisit this in a future Parliament,” Harper vowed Tuesday. “Our intention is to have a free vote.”

Over the past year, the layered debate over marriage rights in Canada has deeply complicated political loyalties and led to numerous switches of party affiliation among members of Parliament, incrementally shifting the balance of power in favor of the Liberals. Still, uncertainty over the exact split of votes continued until just hours before the bill’s final reading when a cabinet member from northern Ontario resigned, saying he would rather risk his leadership post than support legislation his constituents oppose.

Though the marriage legislation was widely expected to pass through Parliament in socially liberal Canada, where recent public opinion polls have shown slightly over half of Canadians in favor of the shifting definition—especially younger people in urban areas—it faced an uphill battle in recent weeks as the prime minister and the Liberals were rocked by an ongoing political scandal of alleged vote-buying and political kickbacks that nearly led to the government’s collapse.

In early June, when it became clear that debate over marriage could continue indefinitely, possibly without ever coming to a vote, supporters of same-sex marriage pledged to extend Parliament’s session through its traditional summer recess for the first time in 17 years in order to force a vote on the matter. The desire for a summer vacation, the Liberals believed, would be all the motivation needed for members of Parliament to cease debate and take a decisive and public stand on the issue.

In order to gain support from unlikely but necessary allies, the legislation was carefully crafted to protect the freedom of religious organizations, allowing them to continue blessing only those marriages they do not oppose. In addition, an amendment was approved Tuesday that protects the charitable status of such religious groups.

In contrast to opposition over marriage rights in the United States, which has been largely understood from a religious framework, the debate in Canada has remained largely secular. Even the Catholic Church, which counts more than 40% of Canada’s population as followers, has largely been absent from the discourse. By contrast, the United Church of Canada, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, publicly endorsed legalizing the unions of same-sex couples.