Same sex marriages come to Canada
Not to be outdone, family values groups jumped on the bandwagon, proclaiming the legalization of marriages among same-sex couples threatened the very integrity of families and marriages in Canada. Nonsense, of course. While lacking any empirical data I can happily report that following the marriage ceremonies of a number of same-sex couples in British Columbia and Ontario my wife and I are still married and don't feel our marriage is the least bit threatened by the Liberals' pending legislation.
Even within the federal Liberal caucus the clamoring of outrage against the government reached new heights. Unrest among the Liberals is certainly nothing new of late but the level of vitriol and its public declaration certainly is. As if Chrètien will not face enough difficulty keeping control of his own party until his February retirement, this latest issue only adds fuel to the fire of those advocating his early abdication to incoming King Martin.
However, the time for philosophical arguments for or against the legalization of same-sex marriages has long since passed. It could be argued that opportunities existed for the federal government to indeed debate the issue long before it came to a legal head and criticism of the government's failure to do so is justified. Like so many controversial issues facing the government, the federal Liberals' approach to debate on the issue has generally been to bury its head in the sand until circumstances could put it off no longer.
Opponents of the plan have suggested a number of alternatives to the proposed legislation. One of the proposals generating discussion has been coming up with a separate term that offers all the same legal recognition and rights ascribed to heterosexual couples but does not use the actual word 'marriage.' This, it is argued, ensures that people are legally treated equally but the 'sanctity' of the term marriage is preserved for those who wish to see it remain a definition of union between man and woman.
The difficulty with such a proposal is that it does not eliminate the discrimination the court found problematic in the first place. Legally, to establish a separate term for same-sex couples continues to mean that certain people are prohibited in engaging in a legally sanctioned marriage, that restriction being determined by sexual preference. In other words, separate but equal does not meet the standard of the Charter.
Others have suggested the federal government get out of the marriage recognition
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