Gay Marriage Is Extended Nationwide in Canada

**Miroku4444** · Jun 29, 2005 10:05 AM

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: June 29, 2005

TORONTO, June 28 - The House of Commons voted Tuesday night to extend marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples throughout Canada despite strong opposition from the Conservatives and a splintering of the governing Liberal Party caucus.

The vote sealed two years of provincial court decisions that gave same-sex couples the right to marry in 8 of 10 provinces and one of the three northern territories. When the Senate approves the measure, considered a formality, Canada will become the third national government, after the Netherlands and Belgium, to enact such rights.

Though the vote was largely symbolic, advocates for gay rights hailed it as a milestone because it was the first time a Canadian legislative body had voted to change the traditional definition of marriage beyond a union of a man and a woman.

"It's about the right to love," Réal Ménard, a Bloc Québécois lawmaker who is gay, said after the vote. "When you are in love, things are different, and everyone is entitled to that." The Conservatives promised to revoke the legislation if they won power in elections, which are expected early next year, setting up a potentially divisive political campaign in the winter.

The vote in Commons followed weeks of heated debate infused with biblical references and emotional warnings about moral decay on one side, and promises of an expansion of equal rights on the other.

Even before the vote, the Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, questioned the legislation's authority because the Liberals needed the votes of the separatist Bloc Québécois to win passage. "Because it is being passed with the support of the Bloc, I think it will lack legitimacy for a lot of Canadians," he said in a televised interview.

The Liberals shot back that the Conservatives had made a tacit alliance with the Bloc just last month in an effort to call early elections.

It was the latest effort by the two leading parties to gain advantage from an issue that polls show divides the Canadian public down the middle, with younger and urban voters generally in favor of expanding marriage rights and older and rural voters generally against.

The Conservative Party has placed advertisements opposing the change in community newspapers catering to immigrant communities, which usually vote for the governing Liberals but are socially more conservative than the population at large. Conservative strategists hope they can lure enough votes from the Liberals in immigrant and particularly Muslim suburban communities in southern Ontario to give them a chance to form a government next year.

While hundreds of thousands of people took part in a gay and lesbian parade in Toronto on Sunday, Mr. Harper appeared at a convention of Muslims in nearby Mississauga and spoke out against the marriage legislation.

"Most Canadians believe that the traditional definition of marriage should be recognized," Mr. Harper told the gathering. "If we refuse to speak about this issue, who will stand up and protect your faith and your religion?"

With enactment of the legislation, same-sex couples will be able to marry for the first time in Alberta, Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and the unions of couples who have already married in other jurisdictions will now be recognized everywhere in Canada.

One Liberal junior cabinet member, Joe Comuzzi, who is responsible for development in northern Ontario, resigned in protest rather than vote with the government. But the 158-to 133-vote represented the approval of the vast majority of three of the four parties in the House of Commons.

Before passage, members agreed to an amendment that would protect the charitable status of any religious institution that refuses to perform same-sex marriages.
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So what do you guys feel about this??

**Siren** · Jun 29, 2005 10:24 AM

And thank god! It's about time, too. Those damn Conservatives (and I can diss Canadian politics, I am Canadian) have been getting in the way for far too long, and while the Liberals are at least trying to do something about ending the discrimination of gays, I still vote for neither. =P

Seriously though, I don't see the big problem. If two males or two females get married, HOW is that affecting everyone else? It's not like they're banning hetero marriages. I just feel like slapping them all in the face and telling them to get over themselves. Grr, this whole thing pisses me off.

Canada has just taken a monumental step forward in banishing discrimination, and it's AWESOME that the entire country now recognizes same-sex marriages as legitimate (as opposed to only several provinces). I mean, if half the country is going to accept it, the other half can suck it up and accept it, too. Canada is valued as a diverse country, not a melting pot. The greatness in our country is accepting alternate sexual orientation, cultures, religions and races other than white Christians, so I don't know why it's taken so long.

This is a spectacular and memorable day in Canada's history, and I am very glad they did this.

**Miroku4444** · Jun 29, 2005 10:40 AM

Hey Im kinda coservative. Dont I have the right to dissagree with gay marriage? How will marriage solve descrimination. To me its a moral issue. I cant believe in it from a moral standpoint.

**Delerium** · Jun 29, 2005 10:41 AM

Yeah, for me living in America it effects me very little. Not that I'd really care all that much if it were America either because well, I'm not gay so it doesnt really effect me...good for Canada I guess, but I mean they get alot of random things we dont like free health care.

**Meiwaku** · Jun 29, 2005 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Delerium

Yeah, for me living in America it effects me very little. Not that I'd really care all that much if it were America either because well, I'm not gay so it doesnt really effect me...good for Canada I guess, but I mean they get alot of random things we dont like free health care.

HAHAHAHA I laugh at bit at that free health care comment it's not some random thing we get. In retrospect we still pay for our health care. It's just done through taxes. GST, PST, FST, LST, DST, TST, KILLMEST.... ok there is only GST and PST.
We have to pay out all this extra money on taxes just so we can get free health care, so really it's not free. If Americans wanted to pay out all this extra money when they bought stuff and lose like 80% of their pay cheque they too could have free health care.

As for the gay marriage thing. Good, finally, I hope they fully pass it. And I don't see why gay people getting married should even be put on a moral level, there is nothing un moral about being gay. The bible is like a tabloid don't read too much into everything that's in it.

**Arrianna** · Jun 29, 2005 11:05 AM

It should be interesting to see how this develops.

I don't agree with it either. It's not a matter of discrimination, it's a matter of concern for the traditional family. In countries in Europe where such legislation has been passed for years there has been a decline in any marriage at all. To quote one of the people (not?) involved, "why bother, it's not like it means anything?". When marriage ceases to be recognized as a tradition concerning parents and children it ceases to have meaning.

But then, having lived in BC for a while I'm not sure it will make a difference, there at least. I have never been in a place with so many common-law lovers, families, and divorces.

**Siren** · Jun 29, 2005 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by kastelic4444

Hey Im kinda coservative. Dont I have the right to dissagree with gay marriage? How will marriage solve descrimination. To me its a moral issue. I cant believe in it from a moral standpoint.

It's a step to solving discrimination against gay people. Refusing them a basic human right solely based on their sexual orientation is discrimination. You cannot help who you fall in love with. The fact that people even see homosexuality as wrong proves how close-minded people are. And no matter what you do to get around it, they will find a loophole.

The day the Conservatives take reign, I'm killing myself. Of course, not before I have a complete and total sex session with a woman right on Parliament's lawn.

**N.Y._Soulja** · Jun 29, 2005 11:20 AM

Man they should legalize it here in the states as well, I mean, c'mon, they are humans, like all of us! They are just different emotionally (not all some) I have a bunch of gay friends espeacially here in Fl.......... I am originally frm NY. N.w Who, they are nice ppl, some are real cool, really I think it's that ppl just don't like the thought of two men, or two women....... Really I don't care. When I found out one of my buddies was gay, I pulled up my arm, and he flinched. He thought I was gonna hit him, but I didn't I place my arm over his shoulder and told him "So? Who are my buddy, no different than anybody else I know"

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