More well-deserved kudos to our friends up north!....Quebec's top court on Friday ruled that "the traditional definition of marriage is discriminatory and unjustified" and became the third Canadian province to give homosexuals the right to wed....they join Ontario and British Columbia in permitting same-sex unions and the three provinces combined represent 70% of Canada's 32 million people.

I particularly loved these quotes from Svend Robinson, an openly gay Member of Parliament from British Columbia for then past 25 years, "The writing is on the wall for those who oppose equal marriage rights. The contrast with what's happened in Bush's America is striking......He (Bush) should look north and ask, 'defend it from what'? As every day goes by Canadians see the sky hasn't fallen."

If the FMA should somehow pass (which all of us realize is thankfully VERY unlikely) I think moving to Canada should be given strong consideration by any gay or lesbian citizen of the U.S....congrats again to all those fair-minded citizens AND legislators up north.

[ March 19, 2004, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: gamecock ]

While I applaud the decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal, the legality of same-sex marriage in Canada remains in limbo. In January, the federal government referred the matter to the Supreme Court, asking for a clear constitutional definition of marriage. Knowing it could take up to a year for the Court to hand down its decision, Paul Martin has thus prevented the subject from becoming a major election issue, widely expected this spring. Also, he knows that some MP's within his own Liberal caucus are not in favour of gay marriage. Martin has enough to worry about already, doing damage control on a huge scandal involving the misuse of government funds in Quebec.

Side note: Today in Toronto, the 'new' Conservative Party (a recent merger of the far-right Alliance Party and the right-of-centre Progressive Conservative Party) will be electing its new leader, and hopes to defeat Martin in the federal election. Two of the three candidates (Stephen Harper and Tony Clement) have, not surprisingly, openly expressed their opposition to same-sex marriage, but Belinda Stronach (a young billionaire with no political experience) is on record as saying she supports it. This is refreshing, coming from a party (especially the Alliance 'branch') which has opposed virtually all progress towards equality for gays and lesbians, not just in the area of same-sex marriage.

[ March 20, 2004, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Marc ]

Did you ever notice the old logo of the Canadian Alliance, the green and blue "CA",
looks like half a swastika? Copy it, turn it 180 degrees, and voila! You get a
right-turning swastika.

Here's their old logo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Alliance

And here's the edited version as I described:
http://www.geocities.com/nazialliance/

It's a shame how they pollute the maple leaf with their "C".


Bob Dog