Canadians have been dealing with issues around sexual orientation for several decades now – decriminalization, human rights protection in the areas of housing and employment, spousal benefits, inheritance rights, adoption, and equal marriage.

Certainly each of those issues, and others, has had their share of controversy and media exposure. Yet somehow it seems it isn’t until our cousins south of the 49th Parallel get involved that it all suddenly becomes Big News and garners international attention and prime time debates over the major networks.

Take the equal marriage issue, for instance. As Canadians we have patiently watched this issue wend its way through the courts, with the Ontario and BC Courts of Appeal declaring to deny same-sex couples the right to marry each other violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and directing the Federal Government to fix the situation by making same-sex marriage legal across Canada. The Canadian government appears amendable to that.

In the US, their president just wants to amend. Period. He is willing, it would seem, to use their sacred Constitution to ensure one segment of the population is denied rights enjoyed by the majority. He is moving to institute a Constitutional Amendment disallowing same-sex marriage, rendering any such unions not only forever invalid but illegal and, in an odd twist, unconstitutional. The assertion of a freedom, the seeking of equality, with a stroke of a presidential pen becomes UN-constitutional: Pretty dangerous stuff. This constitutional amendment would mark the first time in U.S. history an amendment has been used to deny legal rights to a minority group within that country.

Not content to let each State decide for itself (American states have far more autonomy than Canadian provinces and territories), Dubya once again stamps his booted foot and pushes ahead with what he wants. Of course, he couches it in terms of "protecting" and "defining" traditional marriage, not in terms of denying access for a significant portion of his population. Even he sees that is a dangerous road to start walking down.

What prompted this reaction? Well, several things. Massachusetts was moving quickly towards recognizing same-sex marriages; New Hampshire with its installation of an openly gay Episcopalian bishop was not far behind, most likely. Texas repealed its sodomy laws. Then San Francisco’s Mayor and City Council did the unthinkable...they opened the doors to lesbians and gay men and started issuing marriage licenses to them. Imagine! In San Francisco!! Who’d a-thunk...?

Governor Arnie "Hasta La Vista Baby" Schwarzenegger was reportedly so concerned he directed the California State Attorney General to immediately void those licenses and to ban further issuances. As Governor, he is not supposed to do that. Americans are very particular about who does what in their government bureaucracies and various government officials guard their turf jealously. Governor Schwarzenegger was told to back off and mind his own business, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, San Francisco had issued over three thousand marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. One lesbian couple, founders of the first lesbian national organization The Daughters of Bilitis, are in their 80s and have waited for over half a century for the day their relationship would be recognized as fully equal to those of their heterosexual relatives and friends. They may have to wait a bit longer.

Suddenly, same-sex marriage is A Major Issue – discussion groups on AOL and MSN.com are burning up with opinions pro and con. Major news chains are falling all over themselves to interview commentators and line up more Talking Heads on Nightline and other news programs. Americans are having a field day with this.

President Bush is, it would appear, using this issue to make political hay. On February 11th, 2004 The Washington Post reported that, "Republican officials said Bush’s decision to proceed now [with supporting the constitutional amendment put forward by Representative Marylin Musgrave (R-CO)] was driven partly by his desire to start the general election campaign on a fresh issue, at a time when his credibility has been battered by questions about prewar warnings of unconventional weapons in Iraq, as well as doubts raised by Democrats about his National Guard service." If even only partly true, it reveals a startlingly cynical political philosophy.

While the debate in Canada was certainly fractious and intense, with the religious right weighing in with arguments about marriage being about procreation and part of God’s Plan and concerns that polygamy, incest, and marrying ones pet were next, the discussion was, in comparison, fairly civilized.

Not even the Reform/Alliance/New Conservative Party of Canada dared suggest we outlaw same-sex marriage. They took reasonable, democratically appropriate steps to ensure the definition remained "between one man and one woman". One may certainly disagree with their position but, apart from a few flaky individuals on the extreme social conservative side of the debate, they conducted themselves with at least a modicum of restraint. Web sites sponsored by Focus On The Family, Life Site, The Canadian Family Action Coalition and others routinely engage in hysteria and partisan political rhetoric but they preach only to their own choirs, as it were.

Americans are dangling dangerously close to the precipice here. Not the precipice of moral decay and permissiveness that social conservatives have been blathering on against since the 60’s, but a civil rights precipice unlike anything seen since the Civil Rights movement. Can you imagine the reaction, from all points of the political and social continuum, if a president had suggested a constitutional amendment to protect the voting rights of white folk and further marginalize blacks, or a constitutional amendment reinforcing the moral importance of maintaining separate facilities? This is little different.

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Contributor Stephen Lock |

Topic Politics |