IHT: A potential U.S.-Canadian thorn: gay weddings

	A potential U.S.-Canadian thorn: gay weddings
	Clifford Krauss/NYT The New York Times	Wednesday, June 18, 2003

TORONTO The Canadian government's decision this week to open marriage to gay couples follows in the steps of the Netherlands and Belgium, but it could be of far greater significance because of its potential impact on the United States.

Only a few American gay couples have taken advantage of expanded marriage laws in the Netherlands because of its long residency requirement, and Belgium will allow marriages of foreign couples only from countries that already allow such unions.

But Canada has no residency requirement for marriage.

"What this presents for American couples is an opportunity to easily enter into a legal marriage and come back to the United States with a powerful tool to break down the remaining discrimination here," said Lavi Soloway, a Canadian-born lawyer and founder of the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force in New York.

Gay activists in the United States are already declaring that Canada will serve as a vivid example to Americans that same-sex marriage is workable and offers no challenge to traditional, heterosexual family life.

Canadian marriage licenses have always been accepted in the United States, but now that the definition of marriage in the two countries diverges, legal challenges to same-sex couples claiming rights and privileges deriving from their Canadian licenses seem certain in at least some states. Issues over adoption rights, inheritance, insurance benefits and matters as mundane as sharing health club memberships are likely to arise in courts and state legislatures.

"What we are in for is a long gradual struggle to win full equal recognition of these marriages," Soloway said.

The cabinet decision Tuesday to redefine marriage in Canada to include unions between men and between women will immediately take effect in Ontario, the most populous province. It comes after the province's highest court ruled last week that current federal marriage laws are discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.

Once aides to Prime Minister Jean Chretien draft the necessary legislation, the House of Commons is expected to pass it into law in the next few months. Although leaders of the two conservative parties and some backbench Liberals have expressed reservations, there is little organized opposition in Canada to the new law, and polls show a solid majority of public opinion in favor of the change.

"You have to look at history as an evolution of society," Chretien told reporters after the cabinet meeting. "According to the interpretation of the courts these unions should be legal in Canada. We will ensure that our legislation includes and legally recognizes the union of same-sex couples."

Canada's new marriage policy comes at a time when the government is also pushing for legislation that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, another policy that diverges sharply with U.S. practices.

Polling experts and social scientists note that morality and politics mix much less in Canada than in the United States, with Canadians regularly attending church services in far lower numbers than Americans and with fundamentalist Protestant groups attracting far less support.

While acknowledging that the expansion of marriage rights to gay couples was not part of his governing agenda, Chretien said the government would also request advice from the Supreme Court to make the new legislation unassailable to appeals by any provincial governments to invalidate the law in their jurisdictions.

However, the conservative premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein, has threatened a legal fight to exclude his western province from the new marriage rules.

Gay activists celebrated the decision as a civil rights milestone. "June 17th will be a day gays and lesbians will remember for a long, long time to come," said a smiling Svend Robinson, a gay member of the House of Commons from the left-of-center New Democrats.

Since the Ontario appeals court ruled June 10 in favor of same-sex unions, only a few minor hurdles stand in the way of legalizing them throughout Canada.

The most important is a vote in the House of Commons in the next few months, one in which Chretien said he would allow Liberal members to vote their consciences. Leaders of the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party have said their members are solidly behind the change, and with a majority of Liberals they should be able easily to enact the legislation despite opposition from leaders of two conservative parties.

The Supreme Court, which has ruled repeatedly in favor of extending the rights of gay men and lesbians, appears fully to support the efforts of the government to extend marital rights.

The cabinet decided that the legislation will allow churches and religious institutions to refuse to conduct same-sex marriages to protect freedom of religion.

A three-member panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal declared unanimously that the definition of marriage as currently set by federal government - as a union between man and woman - was invalid and must be changed immediately to include same-sex couples. It ruled that under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, roughly the Canadian equivalent of the Bill of Rights, "the existing common-law definition of marriage violates the couple's equality rights on the basis of sexual orientation." It added, "In doing so, it offends the dignity of persons in same-sex relationships."

The New York Times

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