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June 29 - July 6,2003 |
Culture Vulture
Gay Marriage: It's A Family Affair
By Donna Lypchuk
Originally Published: 2003-06-22
The latest newsflash from Sarsville is that same-sex couples now have the right to marry in Ontario. Finally, some good news! I'm almost feeling proud to be a Canadian, again. Now that our government has finally achieved something truly progressive and humane, maybe Time Magazine will stop putting stories about how Canada has disappeared from the face of the earth on its cover. Hell, Canadians were so open-minded and progressive this past week, we were practically Swedish!
Last week the Ontario Court of Appeals finally ruled that the Canadian law regarding traditional marriage is unconstitutional. According to the 61-page report from the appeal that was quoted in the Toronto Star, the ruling claimed that "The existing common-law definition of marriage violates the couple's equality rights on the basis of sexual orientation under the Charter. Exclusion perpetuates the view that same-sex relationships are less worthy of recognition than opposite-sex relationships." Hysterical right-wingers take note: nowhere does it say there that same-sex marriages are MORE worthy. Equality is all that is being demanded here.
The Appeal Court also declared Ottawa's definition of marriage invalid and demanded it be immediately changed to refer to "two persons" instead of "one man and one woman." Marriage licenses will now read spouse and partner rather than man and woman. Finally, marriage is being taken out of its spooky religious context and being named for what it really is - a contract between two people. Marriage is, after all, a calculated act that is about building a life together. It is not something that is necessarily ordained by God.
Wisdom, as we all know, often comes out of the mouths of babes. I was quite touched by Robbie Kemper, the 11-year-old son of lesbian couple Joyce Barnett and Alison Kemper, whose comment about why this was such a positive development: "I knew that nobody could say I didn't have a family, Canada has finally figured out it's unfair to deny this to anybody." According to the Toronto Star, his parents picked up a license to marry as soon a they heard the good news.
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