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Same Sex Articles
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Check the collections below for articles from newspapers around the country.
Articles of general family law related interest
Articles related to Support Obligations
Artilces related to the proposed Custody and Access changes
The articles in these sections are added from time to time and are not a complete collection. They are designed to keep you informed as to how family law issues are discussed in the press. To stay up to date - buy and read the papers.
Contents
Matrimony not an exclusive club for heterosexuals - The Toronto Star April 1, 2000
They do: More gay couples exchanging vows amid a climate of growing public support for same-sex marriages - The Toronto Star April 1, 2000
The price of equality - The Globe and Mail March 18, 2000
Alberta bill bans same-sex marriages - The National Post March 17, 2000
Common-law relationships appear popular but more unstable: study -The National Post March 17, 2000
Gay-rights groups don't want equal treatment - National Post March 11, 2000
Gay, heterosexual couples equal under law: Vermont court - The National Post December 21, 1999
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The Toronto Star
April 1, 2000
Matrimony not an exclusive club for heterosexuals
[By Michele Landsberg]
I'VE BEEN racking my brains to think how my marriage would be affected if the gay guy down the street was legally able to marry his lover. Would I feel threatened? Would the respect and trust I feel toward my husband be shaken; would his loyalty and love for me be rattled to its foundation?
Get real.
Marriage is not some exclusive club. This isn't some supply-and-demand system in which artificially imposed scarcity makes the commodity of marriage more prized. Yet that's how some people are reacting now that the Canadian Parliament has finally acted to end discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.
The courts have ruled: It's discriminatory to treat same-sex couples differently from heterosexuals.
That moaning you hear in the background is the protest of those who believe that same-sex marriage will fatally ``undermine'' heterosexual marriage. Recently, we've heard more of this theme as Justice Minister Anne McLellan brought in Bill C23, otherwise cheerfully known as the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act. It was a praiseworthy effort, and one long overdue: It's been 15 years since the Supreme Court ruled that Parliament had to clean up its act and get rid of discrimination based on sexual orientation. It's to McLellan's credit that she tried to do just that, adding the phrase ``common law partner'' wherever the word ``spouse'' appears in Canadian law. The ``family values'' claque on the Liberal back benches, however, pressured her into an amendment that pointedly limits marriage to male-female couples only. (Is there something sacred about . . . ? Oh never mind). Anything else, they claimed, would topple the institution of matrimony.
I have sincerely tried to grapple with this concept. I've pored over Hansard. I've spent a fair amount of quiet time trying to imagine myself into the minds of those who are frightened by same-sex marriage. A decade or so ago, when I began to challenge myself on a whole rumpled mess of hand-me-down, unexamined assumptions about homosexuality, I went through the same process. Like most Canadians, I've tried to push the doors open to let in more and more light over the years. Gradually, I've thrown out those mouldy scraps of Freudian cliché and tattered rags of stereotypes that were gathering dust in my mental attic.
It seemed only fair to go through the same mental exercise with this idea of same-sex marriage as a terrible threat to us heterosexuals.
I tried. But the only way it makes sense is if you believe that marriage is a sacrament with God.
``There are some who can't seem to separate civil from religious marriage,'' commented Osgoode law professor Bruce Ryder in an interview. ``To them, the extending of equal rights to gays and lesbians is a symbolic attack on the privileged place of heterosexual marriage. They see it as an erosion of government support for religion.''
Quite so. Most Canadians - a clear majority in poll after poll, even in Alberta, even among Conservatives - are supportive of same-sex marriages. Clearly, most Canadians don't think that the government should be in the business of enforcing narrow religious beliefs on this gloriously diverse population.
Comically enough, those who support the idea of gay and lesbian marriage are the silent majority on this issue. Only certain sects of certain religions are so passionately opposed that they trouble to phone, write, fax, lobby and threaten. Finally, the justice minister throws them a symbolic sop ; she adds an insultingly exclusionary clause to her ``modernization of benefits'' act. The amendment has no real legal impact, it doesn't satisfy the theologically rigid (``theo-Conservatives?'') and it deeply offends gays and lesbians. This is how bad, unrepresentative law gets made.
Better we should consider the compromise taking shape in some places, like Vermont, where same-sex couples who want to celebrate a ``civil union'' get their certificate from the same clerk as the heterosexual couples and go through the same civil ceremony. That way, the religious minority could cherish their heterosexually exclusive ``marriage'' while the rest of us honour the equality rights of all.
And what of those gays and lesbians who prize their freedom from the straitjacket of bourgeois institutions? There should certainly be an opting out mechanism for people who want to live together without incurring lifelong obligations after one year, as the current Act would demand - always excepting the requirement to support children, if any.
Anyone in a permanent relationship who wants to be married should be embraced in law. I haven't been able to find one argument against it that holds up to rational examination - all else is religious dogma or pure homophobia.
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The Toronto Star
April 1, 2000
Life Story:
They do
More gay couples exchanging vows amid a climate
of growing public support for same-sex marriages
By Janice Mawhinney
When a west Toronto couple wanted to decorate the top of their wedding cake last summer, they scoured the city.
There were thousands of little brides and grooms, but not what they needed.
``We ordered them from Atlanta over the Net: It was an e-commerce success story,'` says Rob.
Finding two little men for the top of the cake wasn't their only problem. The marriage isn't legal.
After Rob, a 30-year-old student, and Paul, a 28-year-old management consultant, had lived together for two years and gone out for more than two years before that, they were ready to settle down.
``We love each other a lot and we wanted to show our commitment to each other, so we decided to get married,'' explains Paul.
They hired a wedding consultant and booked McLean House in the Sunnybrook Estates, a popular mainstream wedding spot. They arranged for a Metropolitan Community Church minister to preside. They designed invitations for 56 friends and family. It was, says Paul, ``a fairy tale wedding.''
The couple, who didn't want their last names used, are part of what anecdotal evidence suggests is a small but steady and growing number of gay and lesbian couples choosing the ritual and ceremony of marriage.
There are now at least seven Toronto churches where clergy will perform services for gay and lesbian unions: the Unitarian Congregation of Toronto, the Metropolitan Community Church, Bloor St. United, Glen Rhodes United, Trinity-St. Paul's United, Metropolitan United and Bathurst St. United.
The ground has begun to buckle under traditional opposition to gay marriage. Change is in the air.
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`It's very exciting, what's happening in public opinion. There is a revolution occurring.' |
| - Brent Hawkes, Minister, Metropolitan Community
Church of Toronto
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``It's very exciting, what's happening in public opinion,'' says Brent Hawkes, minister at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto. ``There is a revolution occurring.''
In recent weeks:
``There's a major shift going on in public opinion and it's snowballing,'' says Hawkes. ``Whenever the issue is up for debate, we gain. There's discussion and people get educated. We can't lose when people get educated.''
Fisher calls McLellan's insistence on adding a heterosexual definition of marriage to the pending legislation ``a gratuitous slur, a slap in the face to the gay and lesbian community, and a political miscalculation.
``Canadians and their courts are significantly ahead of their own government.''
Hawkes welcomes changes giving gay and lesbian partners the same rights enjoyed by straight common law couples. But until they're able to get legally married, he says, they are not on a level playing field.
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`I believe in a monogamous relationship: What's immoral about that?' |
| - Lesbian Annie Walsh
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``In a country where we pride ourselves on our diversity, we should not be satisfied with entrenching bigotry and discrimination in our law.''
Rob and Paul are married to each other in the eyes of their family, friends and co-workers. They are married in the eyes of their church.
``We feel married,'' says Paul. ``We wear wedding bands.''
But they're not married in the eyes of the law.
Because of recent legal changes, they're considered common law partners under Ontario law, and entitled to all the rights that male and female common law partners have regarding pension benefits, old age security and child-care tax breaks.
But because Rob and Paul are not legally married, if either dies without a will, the other may not inherit. One can't change to the other's name after their wedding. And if one lived outside the country, immigration procedures wouldn't recognize the union.
These are strange times for gay rights issues. On one hand, there's still open antagonism toward gay and lesbian people. Visiting Thunder Bay to promote the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth Line, co-chair Bonte Minnema was cornered in a mall parking lot.
``Six men in a Cadillac were driving in circles around me shouting: Faggot!'' he recalls. ``I told them it takes one to know one. They were very angry, but I got to my van okay.''
In Kingston on the way home, he says, kids threw stones at the van marked with the organization's name.
``There's a real backlash: There seems to have been a rise in gay bashing and hate crimes against gays and lesbians over the past few years,'' says Hawkes. He wears a bullet-proof vest on Gay Pride Day because of threats to his life.
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`I was uncomfortable with the idea of the kiss at the end of the wedding ceremony. . . And they wanted the invitation to say the word wedding. I found hidden pockets of shame inside myself.' |
| - Roslyn Merling, who helped plan son's nuptials |
``It's fashionable to have gay and lesbian couples in your circle of friends now,'' notes Warren McDougall, a minister at Bloor St. United Church. ``It's chic. It's cool.''
And if the larger society is divided, so are gay men and lesbian women themselves.
Some are dubious about the gift horse of equal common law relationship rights. With rights come responsibilities, and not everyone embraces the potential obligation to pay support after dissolution of a casual live-in relationship.
The idea of gay marriage raises as much outrage among some gay activists as it does elsewhere. Some say marriage is an institution devised for the oppression of women and they don't want anything to do with it.
``I've heard some pretty convincing arguments that marriage is a heterosexual institution, an institution of the church and of mainstream society - and why should we mimic them?'' observes Derek Norman of the Glad Day Bookshop on Yonge St. ``Why would we want to be like straight people?''
Hawkes argues it's a simple matter of equal human rights: Homosexual people should have the same options that heterosexual people have.
``I believe there should be full equality. Those who don't want the access to it don't have to make use of it.''
Annie Walsh, 30, of Malton, who works rustproofing cars, and Cheryl Brown, 35, who has her own drywalling, woodworking and painting business, have known each other for 10 years and have been a couple for five.
Last summer, they were married in a Unitarian service. Both wore tuxedos and had such wedding nerves that Walsh ``shook like a leaf,'' she recalls.
``We dated for almost a year, lived together in an apartment for two years, then bought a house together,'' says Walsh. ``Then we decided to get married like everyone else. We love each other immensely and marriage is a whole different level of commitment.
``It's just not fair that our marriage isn't legal. We have common law rights now, but it's not the same thing.''
Walsh says she can't understand why her marriage would seem threatening to anyone.
``I read in the paper that a woman said it (gay marriage) is immoral,'' she says. ``I believe in a monogamous relationship: What's immoral about that?
``My own mother didn't come to my wedding - she sees me as an old maid.''
Hawkes, however, sees more and more families coming to gay and lesbian weddings.
``I've been the pastor here for 23 years and it used to be that a gay wedding would include the couple and a few friends. Now there are grandparents and aunts and uncles and little kids running around. At one recent wedding, the two mothers were the witnesses.''
When Andrew Merling and Doug Wythe decided to marry in Montreal in 1996, it rocked the Merling family and strained the marriage of Andrew's parents, Sheldon and Roslyn.
Andrew wanted to marry Doug in a black-tie wedding with a traditional Jewish service and a splashy reception for 175 family and friends, such as his sisters had.
Sheldon found himself deeply uncomfortable.
``I was concerned at how my friends and relatives would look at this,'' he says. ``My view of the wedding was: Why are they putting Sheldon through all this? Why does it have to be so in-your-face?''
Roslyn, a social worker who has counselled gay people and their families on similar matters, thought she had it all together. She lined up with Andrew and Doug against her husband on the issue. But she discovered, to her shock, that it wasn't quite so easy.
``I found I was uncomfortable with the idea of the kiss at the end of the wedding ceremony, with Andrew kissing Doug in front of all our friends and the community. And they wanted the invitation to say the word wedding,'' she recalls. ``I found hidden pockets of shame inside myself that I hadn't known about.''
The four went together to joint couples therapy until they worked the problems through.
The experience prompted the four to write The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (HarperCollins, $34.95), published last month.
Unitarian chaplain Doreen Peever in St. Catharines says she has not only performed union services for gay couples, but she has presided at an official dissolution, a divorce that had to be as unofficial as the wedding.
``I drew up a certificate of dissolution that they both signed with witnesses,'' she says.
She can't understand why gays and lesbians are denied legal marriage.
``It's no threat in any way to the institution of marriage between men and women,'' she says. ``That's completely irrelevant.''
The government estimates there are 140,000 same-sex households in Canada, but the number may be much higher. The census has never asked that question; the cabinet is now considering whether to include it on the next census.
``Gays and lesbians won't be fully equal until every provincial government and the federal government change their laws to provide equal treatment for those in same-sex relationships,'' says Fisher. But he sees that time coming.
He's sure that before long, Paul and Rob will be legally married, as will Walsh and Brown, and Wythe and Merling.
The government has left itself vulnerable by inserting into the new legislation a definition of marriage that restricts it to a man and a woman, he says.
``There's no question that there will be a Charter (of Rights) challenge to this,'' he says. ``It's just a matter of time. Canadians are ready for this.''
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The Globe and Mail
Saturday, March 18, 2000
The price of equality
ALEXANDRA GILL
Now that Canadian law recognizes live-in same-sex couples as common-law spouses, some gay men are privately worried about the financial strings attached -- and whether that court victory is changing their community's own liberated values.
Colin is the type of guy any gay man would love to bring home to Mom. He's a good-looking, funny, outgoing, educated professional in his mid-30s with assets. Lots of them.
In addition to a thriving sales company, from which he draws a $400,000 salary each year, Colin owns four investment properties in downtown Toronto, a sizable retirement nest egg, a modest stock portfolio and a growing modern art collection, which includes "a very pretty Picasso." He drives a Pathfinder, with an Audi TT on order, and treats himself to exotic vacations (fishing the mangroves of Florida, for instance, or chanting with monks in the Himalayas) every month.
The ultimate catch? Yessiree. Which is exactly why Colin is now terrified about falling into a love trap.
A Supreme Court judgment last May has radically altered the rules of the gay dating game. The M. v H. decision, loudly lauded by the gay and lesbian community as a huge step forward in the march for equality, recognized that same-sex couples who live together are no different from heterosexual common-law couples in the eyes of the law. (See sidebar.) As laws change to reflect the decision, same-sex couples will gain access to pension benefits, old-age security and child-care tax breaks.
What few in the gay and lesbian community have been willing to talk about publicly, though, is that some of their number, like Colin, were shocked to wake up and discover the state had saddled them with an interpretation of live-in relationships they'd never banked on.
"I like the notion of equality," Colin insists. "Really, the recognition is terrific. But to think that everything I've worked so hard for could suddenly be at risk . . . I feel really threatened by the fact that if I were living with someone who earned significantly less, I might have to face support payments sometime down the road."
It's certainly not nice for potential sugar daddies to admit such trepidations. "If you use my real name," Colin nervously warns, "I'll never get another boyfriend again." But he can't help feeling slightly burned. "The gay fight for liberation hasn't been about conformity. I mean, who am I? A young gay guy who came out of the closet and felt like an incredibly liberated person. Now I have to reassess everything -- as opposed to a straight guy, who knew exactly what he was in for."
That's one perspective. On the end of the rainbow are couples like Ted Mouradian, 52, and Troy Brooks, 37, who welcome their change in status with open arms -- even though they figure they'll probably lose out at tax time. "It's the first step in equality across the board," cheers Mouradian, though he notes, regrettably, that opposite-sex common-law couples can decide whether or not to get married. "We still don't have the choice."
No, but they do have all the trimmings. Together, Mouradian and Brooks own a two-story house with a big front porch in downtown St. Catharines and a relationship-management consulting company, the Humphry Group. Mouradian is a motivational speaker; Brooks does all the administration. They wear matching gold wedding bands, have a family membership at the gym, and are the proud fathers of two teenaged daughters (from Mouradian's previous marriage).
"Although we didn't have to have this happen," says Mouradian, "it's legitimized our relationship in the eyes of our daughters and our families." He isn't worried about the financial repercussions in the event of a future break-up; they are thinking about going drawing up a cohabitation agreement, but only if it's necessary by law.
"There's a big trust factor," Mouradian says blithely. "I know a lawyer would say it's too easy to fall in love and too hard to get out of it. But I guess we're not your average couple. Relationship management -- that's our business."
Mouradian's received plenty of confused phones calls in the last few months from friends who want to know if they have to worry about being sued. "My answer is: If you're in a loving, caring relationship, what are you afraid of? Isn't it nice to have responsibility with the rights? Maybe you'll think twice before jumping into bed with someone now."
Therein lies the beating heart of the issue: it's all about lifestyle choices --and having lots of them.
"I think this legislation codifies the larger battle in gay culture," says Toronto writer R. M. Vaughan, "between conservative elements who want to mimic heterosexuals and think that's the path to freedom, and the traditionalists, now turned upside down into radicals, who don't want anything to do with straight norms."
Vaughan considers himself one of those old-style gays, who doesn't understand "all this madness" about preserving and embracing the "mockery" of marriage. "What is the divorce rate now -- 60 per cent?" Vaughan, 35, doesn't aspire to what he considers "heterosexual norms" of coupledom. "I have loftier goals," he says.
Such as? "To find someone who is my main love interest in life, but at the same time to have the freedom to express myself sexually outside the primary relationship. I have seen it work in many, many relationships."
The way Vaughan views it, promiscuity in the gay community is the tradeoff for being treated like second-class citizens by the straight majority. "It's allowed us to develop a more advanced understanding of sexuality and family." He points to friends who live with ex-mates as well as current lovers, urban communes made up of various offspring and relations, and couples who agree to fool around, but abide by certain rules that compel them to always sleep in the same bed or not bring anybody home.
Vaughan would've preferred to see the government broaden the definition of partnership to include any chosen primary relationship -- hetero, homo or asexual. But now that gays and lesbians have been lumped into the archaic property-based heterosexual framework, he says, "We're as dull as everyone else."
Though Vaughan is exaggerating when he says "everyone in the gay community sleeps around," unconventional relationships are more widely accepted among gays than they are in the straight world.
According to a 1998 national survey conducted by Xtra!, a gay-and-lesbian biweekly, and the Angus Reid Polling Group, 15 per cent of the publications' readers were in long-term "open" relationships (though only 10 per cent of those respondents were women). Another 37 per cent were in monogamous relationships, but the fact that the question was even asked is telling. And, interestingly enough, those dewy-eyed romantics who stick to one partner and dream of same-sex domestic bliss tended to be younger.
Which is cold comfort to Roger, who requested anonymity, lest those "annoying activists" start hounding him. Having already been through two long-term relationships, this 40-year-old middle-class professional in the communications industry isn't in any hurry to shack up. In fact, the thought of it gives him shivers.
Several years ago, Roger met a bright young man who was cute and clever, but a bit of a layabout. "Yeah, he was good at a cocktail party," Roger chuckles. The relationship was progressing well, so before long they gave living together a try. It lasted for more than two years, then fizzled.
"Thank God this legislation wasn't in place then," Roger says with a gulp. "He would've been entitled to ongoing support payments. Which is absolutely horrifying, because I never took it too seriously. . . . It's made me realize that there's no more fooling around -- and I don't mean that in a sexual way. You cannot cohabit with someone on an experimental basis. You have to be really damn sure that you're committed and that you're prepared for the consequences. I think you're going to see a lot less cohabitation."
Roger acknowledges that cohabitation agreements (the equivalents of pre-nups) would help. "But who does that?" he asks. "One of the great things about being gay is that we tend not to be so uptight about this kind of stuff."
David Corbett, a lawyer for the Foundation for Equal Families, the Toronto group that prompted Bill C-23 by launching a legal challenge against the federal government, doesn't have time for old-fashioned Lotharios who want to have their cake and eat it too.
"Too bad for them. They should be worried. These younger guys are not little playthings to bring home and have a little fun with for a few years. It's just like heterosexual relationships. If a wealthy man starts up a relationship with a younger woman, obligations will flow. And if they're worried, they should get an agreement ahead of time. If they aren't prepared to provide for their partners and treat it seriously, they may find that these younger men just aren't there anymore."
True enough. Take Michael, for example. The 34-year-old actor met Paul a little more than a year ago. At the time, Paul was 39 and so well-off he was already retired. Michael, who had stopped selling real estate after receiving a modest cash settlement from his previous partner of eight years, was just getting by. Six months into their relationship, Michael moved into Paul's swank Rosedale home. They spent the next four months travelling around the world.
After the Supreme Court decision -- "Long overdue and absolutely necessary," Michael says in an e-mail from Australia -- he drafted an agreement, signing off any and all rights to support. "I felt I could provide for myself, as I always have," Michael explains. "And I honestly felt that Paul would do the right thing should we break up.
"So, I went to my lawyer and, although she never actually laughed out loud, she did paint a few scenarios with regard to an untimely-death situation and pointed out that I was spending some of my prime working years travelling (my choice, of course). She made me realize that if Paul grows tired of me in five, 10 or even 20 years, I would have to adjust to living a lifestyle very different from what I am fast becoming accustomed to."
Michael did not sign his original document. He and Paul are now trying to work out the amendments suggested by the lawyer, including a life-insurance policy and an escalating support clause that kicks in on their third anniversary.
"I have no idea how long it will take to finalize the agreement. But if it's causing any stress for Paul, he hasn't said so. He claims he has never been happier than he is now in our relationship. I, too, am looking forward to a blissful life together. . . . Issues around money are always difficult to discuss, whether you're gay or straight."
Yesterday you were merely live-in lovers, today you're spouses. Welcome to the happy domain of common-law, home to nearly a million heterosexual couples in Canada, and growing. If the prospect of sharing anything more than a box of cornflakes puts a sour taste in your mouth, relax. The situation may not be as dire (or promising) as you think. A common-law partnership does not have the same legal status as marriage, but there are ways of opting into matrimonial rights or out of your statutory obligations.
Show your love on the dotted line: You are not a cad to ask your partner to sign a cohabitation agreement. In fact, says Toronto lawyer David Corbett, "The most considerate thing you can do for your partner is something to avoid conflict at the end." Cohabitation agreements can allow you to opt out of any obligation for spousal support, to make property-sharing arrangements or to designate estate inheritances (which are not automatically transferred to your common-law spouse on your death, unless it is joint property). Future custody and access to children are the only stipulations a couple cannot make in a cohabitation contract.
Quickie versus Quality: In British Columbia, where same-sex common-law rights have been enshrined since 1997, the Self Counsel Press publishes a popular fill-in-the-blanks Living Together Contract for $15.95. But Joanna Radbord, the Toronto lawyer who was co-counsel for "M" in the historic M. v H. Supreme Court case, doesn't really recommend it. Besides the fact that an improperly drafted contract could invalidate certain sections, Radbord says it's important to tailor an agreement to individual concerns. Take the matrimonial home, for instance (a rather important asset which a generic contract doesn't specifically address). Do you want to split the house in the event of a break-up, or share in the increase in value of the property according to the ratio of each initial contribution? For the approximate cost of $1,500 and a few hours of your time, the fine print could make a huge difference. Radbord recommends you take the time to hash out your mutual needs before coming in.
It takes more than a year: The definitions of common- law vary across provinces and between acts. The Tax Act, for instance, only requires that you cohabit for one year before you must declare your common-law status on your income-tax form (and give up your separate GST and two principal residence credits). Same goes for the right to make health-care decisions for your partner. But when it comes to spousal support, most jurisdictions say common-law doesn't begin until three years of cohabitation, unless there is a child involved.
He doesn't automatically get half of everything: Whereas most married couples can count on an even split, a common-law partner has no statutory right to property unless it is registered in his name. The unregistered partner can apply for a share if a court orders an ownership interest. But this is discretionary and requires a constructive trust claim to prove that he made a financial contribution to the acquisition or improvement of the home. Nor does he have any control over the registered owner's decisions regarding the home; a married person needs the other's signed consent to sell or mortgage the matrimonial home.
You don't have to live under one roof: There are seven factors the courts can take into consideration when deeming a relationship common-law. As long as the overall relationship appears to be spousal in character, not all seven criteria need to be met. They are:
shared shelter
social time spent together
community perception (how do others see your relationship?)
finances (joint accounts?)
sex (are you doing it?)
domestic labour (do you share duties?)
children
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The National Post
Friday, March 17, 2000
The Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. - The Vermont House approved historic legislation yesterday allowing gays to form "civil unions" that would carry many of the benefits -- and burdens -- of marriage.
The House voted 76-69 to forward the bill to the Senate, where leaders have said they believe it will have the votes to pass.
A crowd of at least 150 people lined the galleries and balconies of the House chamber as lawmakers cast their votes. Many wore their feelings on their lapels -- pink stickers for supporters, white for opponents.
"This certainly is groundbreaking," said Peg Byron of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay advocacy group. "I think it really sets a moral as well as a legislative example for the rest of the country."
Gay couples who form civil unions would be entitled to some 300 state benefits or privileges available to married couples, in such areas as inheritance, property transfers, medical decisions, insurance and taxes. Such couples could file a joint state income tax return, for example.
The federal government still would not recognize such unions with regard to such things as immigration rights, Social Security and federal taxes.
Congress and more than 30 states have passed laws denying recognition to same-sex "marriages" performed in other states. Nonetheless, some suggest those state laws might not apply to same-sex "civil unions" performed in Vermont.
The Vermont bill provides for unions that amount to marriage in everything but name. Partners could apply for a licence from town clerks and have their civil union "certified" by a justice of the peace, a judge or a member of the clergy.
The burdens are equally onerous. Partners who want to split up would have to go through "dissolution" proceedings in Family Court, in the same way that married couples have to pursue a divorce. They would also assume each other's debts as do married couples.
Although the bill carries Vermont to the edge of recognizing gay marriage, lawmakers still sought to preserve the term "marriage" for the union of a man and a woman, adopting an amendment making that clear. That definition previously had existed only in the bill's preamble and not in the text.
"This raises my comfort level," said Bruce Hyde, a Republican representative.
But the House also rejected an amendment that would have prohibited Vermont from recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere.
The entire issue was forced on the legislature because the state Supreme Court ruled in December that same-sex couples are being unconstitutionally denied the benefits of marriage. The high court left it up to the legislature to decide whether to allow gay marriages or create some kind of domestic partnership.
Opponents of the bill said it far exceeded anything done by any other state.
"Vermont is so far out on a limb by itself because there's nothing close to it," said Vince McCarthy of the American Center for Law and Justice. "Even a state as liberal as Massachusetts doesn't recognize domestic partnerships."
California comes closest. It started a domestic partnership registry on Jan. 1. Those listed as domestic partners are entitled to hospital visitation rights, and state and local government workers registered as domestic partners can get health care coverage through their employers.
In Vermont, civil union partners also would be permitted to make medical decisions on one another's behalf; they would be responsible for one another's remains when one died; and they would be able to inherit each other's estates without having to pay hefty estate taxes.
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The National Post
Friday, March 17, 2000
Alberta bill bans same-sex marriages
James Cudmore
EDMONTON - A private member's bill banning marriages between same-sex couples has been voted into law by Alberta's legislative assembly.
Bill 202, or the Marriage Amendment Act, defines marriage to be exclusively "between a man and a woman," and further invokes the notwithstanding clause to ensure the bill continues to hold force in the face of any future challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Introduced last year by Victor Doerksen, the Conservative MLA for Red Deer South, the bill faced little opposition in the Alberta Legislature, despite a dissenting opinion from Dave Hancock, Alberta's Minister of Justice. Mr. Hancock said that the bill would have no legal force as marriage is within federal legislative jurisdiction.
Mr. Doerksen disagreed: "We grant the marriage licence in Alberta, we determine who can perform marriages, we determine restrictions around age, so the province definitely has a role to play," he said.
Julie Lloyd, an Edmonton lawyer and spokeswoman for Equal Alberta, a gay and lesbian rights group, was quick to cast the bill as both ill-founded and mean-spirited.
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The National Post
Friday, March 17, 2000
Common-law relationships appear popular but
more unstable: study
All-women survey shows successful females more likely to leave
relationship
Paul Waldie
Living together has become a popular prelude to marriage, but a new study says common-law relationships are also becoming popular for divorced men and women.
The study, released yesterday by Statistics Canada, also shows that common-law relationships are far more unstable than marriages, and that successful women are less likely to marry a common-law partner than successful men.
"The better a woman's economic position is, the less likely she is to marry her common-law partner and the more likely she is to leave the union," the study noted.
"In contrast, professional and semi-professional men are more likely to marry their common-law partners."
The study is based on a 1995 survey of nearly 5,000 women between the ages of 20 and 69. The survey examined marriages and common-law relationships of any duration. Although only women were surveyed, the researchers said other research has found consistent results for men.
The study found that 63% of young women whose first relationship was common law had seen that relationship end. By contrast, just 33% of young women who married first had separated.
"If you start in a common-law relationship you are far more likely to separate than if you get married first," said Pierre Turcotte, a Statistics Canada analyst who co-wrote the report.
"We now know that after the end of the first union, women are more likely to enter a common-law relationship even if they had married first. They won't go back to marriage, at least not as a second marriage."
According to the study, young women who married first and then separated, were twice as likely to choose a common-law relationship instead of re-marrying.
More couples than ever are breaking up, the study also found.
The proportion of women who had experienced at least two relationships, married or common law, was far higher for younger women than older women. While 25% of women in their 60s experienced a break-up in their lives, over 40% of women in their 30s and 40s had experienced a breakup.
"This suggests that breakdowns of first unions are happening earlier in life," the study said.
Not surprisingly, common-law relationships are more popular among young people than older people.
More than half of women in their 20s said their first relationship was common law. That compared with just 38% of women in their 30s and 18% of women in their 40s. Over 90% of women in their 50s and 60s said they married first.
The study noted that economics have a strong impact on whether common-law relationships turn into marriage. Researchers have found "a strong association between the economic circumstances of the couple and the chance that their union will end or transform into marriage."
Mr. Turcotte said Statistics Canada researchers plan to further examine the reasons behind the increase in common-law relationships.
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"The Changing Face of Conjugal Relationships," a study on women's roles within conjugal unions.
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National Post
Saturday, March 11, 2000
Gay-rights groups don't want equal treatment
You can learn a lot by listening, goes the old saying, and last week the people of California proved how right that saying is. On Super Tuesday, Californians voted on Proposition 22, a motion to amend their state's constitution to forbid the legal recognition of homosexual "marriages." By a margin of better than 61-39, one of the most liberal states in the United States voted to join the 29 others that protect their marriage laws from adventuresome judges. Kinda makes you wonder what Canadians would say about this issue, if they were ever permitted to give an opinion, doesn't it?
Well, no risk of that. Over the past decade, Canadian advocates of gay marriage have artfully pushed their case forward through the courts and the bureaucracy, carefully avoiding exposing themselves to the dangerous possibilities of democracy. Today, the latest instalment in this story -- Bill C-23 -- is wending its way through the federal House of Commons, guided by a justice minister who shrugs off opposition to her project with the retort that debate is futile: The courts insist on the bill and the federal government must obey. But as California reminds us, it remains the people who ultimately rule, provided only that they exert themselves.
Like previous gay-rights enactments, Bill C-23 drapes itself in the language of fairness and equality. Unfortunately for the bill's proponents, debate on the bill is coinciding with three incidents that give a much more honest picture of what is really at stake.
Next month, the obscenity case against Vancouver's Little Sister's bookstore proceeds to the Supreme Court. As the National Post's Mark Stevenson reported on Feb. 25, one of the intervenors in the case -- the government-funded Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) -- is offering a breathtaking new argument on behalf of the store's right to import gay smut from the United States: Because pornography is much more integral to gay sexuality than it is to heterosexual sexuality, homosexuals should be largely exempt from the obscenity laws. (You can read a complete draft of LEAF's argument at its Web site, www.leaf.ca.) As Little Sister's manager told Mr. Stevenson: "Our community is different and has varying ideas."
Critics of the gay-rights cause have long argued that the movement is engaged in a classic game of bait-and-switch: first, pleading that gays only want the same rights as heterosexuals, then doubling back to emphasize the uniqueness of gay culture and its need for special treatment. In Britain, for instance, where the gay-rights movement has advanced even further than it has in Canada, all three candidates for the newly created post of mayor of London have been pressured into promising that if elected they will cease enforcing laws against sex in public places, since such laws disproportionately burden homosexuals. But we don't have to go all the way to Britain; as Christie Blatchford reported in this paper last year, Toronto police have also been pressured into ignoring the laws that proscribe sex clubs.
A second revealing incident was covered in the National Post yesterday. The Anglican bishop of Vancouver, Michael Ingham, is now considering violating church law and extending marriage blessings at homosexual commitment ceremonies. When he heard that local priests were thinking about responding to his mutiny against the church by submitting their parishes to the oversight of another, more orthodox, bishop, he issued a letter warning his diocese that no rebellion against his rebellion would be tolerated.
The third incident is by now probably the best known of all: On March 2, the Ontario Human Rights Commission released its decision in the case of Scott Brockie, fining the printer $5,000 for declining to produce letterhead, envelopes and business cards for a homosexual organization. The commission explained that while Mr. Brockie, a born-again Christian, was free to believe church teachings about the sinfulness of homosexuality, he was not free to act on those beliefs.
The Brockie case moved Donna Laframboise, a board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a supporter of the gay-rights movement and a regular contributor to this paper, to express her dismay: "How disappointing that the gay and lesbian community, which itself has historically been victimized by state coercion, now believes that this is the way to a better society." But that is a very naive reaction. Using the powers of the state to coerce dissenters is the prize the gay-rights movement has sought from its beginnings 30 years ago. The laws of Canada have long stated (and rightly, too) that nobody would be permitted to act on negative beliefs about racial minorities, no matter how conscientiously those beliefs were held. When the modern gay-rights movement decided to present sexual orientation as a condition exactly analogous to race, it put all of society on warning that it intended, if it could, to suppress and punish moral traditionalism in exactly the same way as we suppress and punish racial discrimination. The gay-rights movement was not asking for equal treatment according to heterosexual norms. From London to Vancouver, it is demanding that society be re-engineered according to homosexual norms.
The most important thing to understand about Bill C-23 and the people sponsoring it is this: The gay-rights movement is not now and never has been a liberal movement (in the old-fashioned, liberty-promoting sense of the word liberal). The gay-rights movement is founded on beliefs about human nature, politics and the family that depart radically from those by which Canadians have lived since the settling of this country. As Mr. Brockie and Bishop Ingham's flock now understand, the gay-rights movement is not asking that its new beliefs be permitted to coexist alongside the old; it is insisting that its new beliefs must replace the old -- and that those dissenting souls who still uphold the old be hunted, isolated and punished.
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The
Globe and Mail
Saturday, March 11, 2000
Gay-rights activist took pension fight to Supreme Court
He lost his campaign for spousal benefits
but paved the way for other same-sex cases
DONN DOWNEY
Jim Loves Jack told the story, a television documentary about a gay couple and one partner's 50 years of gay activism.
James Egan started with a letter-writing campaign in postwar Toronto when gays were the target of the gutter press, but he will be remembered for challenging the federal government when it refused to grant him and his partner, John Nesbit, pension benefits as a couple.
Their case eventually went to the Supreme Court of Canada, which rejected their challenge in 1995. But the court did find that the government's refusal infringed on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, opening the door to further legislation and debate that continues to this day.
Mr. Egan died on Thursday at his home in Courtney on Vancouver Island. He was 78. He was taken to hospital on Monday complaining of fatigue and was discharged later that afternoon.
He was not particularly pleased with the mixed message delivered by the court, which justified its ruling by finding that limiting spousal pension benefits to opposite-sex partners is a justified infringement of homosexual rights. The benefits are intended to help poor and elderly women, the court ruled.
"Jack and I have worked and paid income tax all our lives," he said. "We've contributed to the pot for 39 years when I made my application. And we were told we were not entitled to any of the benefits which we paid into all our lives."
He did concede that the Supreme Court decision tossed the ball back into the hands of Parliament, saying that it was obliged to respond. It has yet to do so.
But John Fisher, a spokesman for Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, said Mr. Egan paved the way for other same-sex cases before the courts.
He credited Mr. Egan's fight with laying the groundwork for a decision last year in Ontario that found same-sex couples could sue each other for alimony.
Mr. Egan began his campaign in 1949 -- long before the phrase "gay activist" was coined. Mr. Nesbit was the quieter of the two, shying away from the publicity that his partner courted. They met, fell in love and exchanged rings in Toronto while Mr. Egan was badgering politicians, the clergy, psychiatrists and reporters from the mainstream media, protesting against negative stereotypes found in the scandal sheets, and the harassment and witch-hunts by authorities.
He said there was a "conspiracy of silence" in the legitimate media while seedy papers wrote about "queers" and "pansies."
Mr. Egan, a biologist, was interviewed by The Globe and Mail's Sean Fine in 1994 on the eve of the Supreme Court hearing.
"There's very little difference between us and a married couple," he said. "We vacuum the rugs and cut the lawn and go shopping and pay our taxes just like real people."
Mr. Nesbit, who was generally reluctant to talk to the media and declined to be interviewed after Mr. Egan died, told Mr. Fine that he remembered "having very romantic ideas when I was in my teens of living with somebody and being with them until I die."
Mr. Egan compiled a 105-page book of his letters that was published by the Canadian Gay Archives in Toronto. For 12 years he served as an openly gay politician on the municipal council in Comox-Strathcona on Vancouver Island.
He and Mr. Nesbit ran a business for several years, gathering and preserving starfish, sea cucumbers, jellyfish and other sea life for use in schools.
Mr. Fine wrote that Mr. Egan relished the limelight of the Supreme Court hearing and considered it the cap to his career. Mr. Nesbit chose to stay at home.
He did say that he and Mr. Egan were not much concerned about the money that might be involved. "What we are concerned with is equal rights, and making things better for young homosexual men and women in Canada."
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The National
Post
Tuesday,
December 21, 1999
Gay, heterosexual
couples equal under law: Vermont court
First ruling to say gays entitled to all marriage benefits
Christopher
Graff
The Associated Press, with
files from The Christian Science Monitor
BOSTON - Vermont's Supreme Court ruled yesterday that gay people are entitled to the same marriage benefits as heterosexuals in an unprecedented decision hailed by U.S. gay rights advocates.
The decision by the court, which currently is suspended to give the state legislature time to act, said the legislators must now consider whether to allow gay marriages or to establish a legal system of domestic partnership.
But, in either case, the result must offer equal protections to same-sex couples as to heterosexual married couples, the small New England state's highest court ruled in a unanimous decision.
The ruling cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because the Vermont court based its decision on the state constitution. The Vermont Supreme Court is the state's only appeals court.
The decision places the issue before the legislature, which will convene next month.
While two other U.S. states -- California and Hawaii -- have limited domestic-partnership systems, and several European countries have extended some legal protections to gays, no other court anywhere has ever said gay and traditional couples are entitled to absolute equality under the law, legal experts say.
Gay advocates hailed the ruling, saying it would have a profound impact on a growing national debate about the rights of same-sex couples.
"We are thrilled with this decision. It's a tremendous victory," said Jennifer Levi, a lawyer for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, co-counsel on the case.
"This is the first court to say that the full range of benefits and protections must be extended to same-sex couples," she said.
While the decision has no impact on federal law, it has profound implications for state law on many fronts, including adoption, inheritance and health care, Ms. Levi said.
The court's ruling used clear and direct language that lawyers said left no doubt about its intent.
"We hold that the state is constitutionally required to extend to same-sex couples the common benefits and protections that flow from marriage under Vermont law," it said.
"Whether this ultimately takes the form of inclusion within the marriage laws themselves or a parallel 'domestic-partnership' system or some equivalent statutory alternative, rests with the legislature. Whatever system is chosen, however, must conform with the constitutional imperative to afford all Vermonters, the common benefit, protection and security of the law," the decision said.
This month, Hawaii's Supreme Court slammed the door on gay marriages in that state, once considered most likely to legalize same-sex unions. Hawaii's high court said the issue was resolved by a 1998 amendment to the state constitution against gay marriages.
Now the torch has been passed to California, which has the United States' largest gay population and a track record of defining new social policy for the country as a whole. On March 7, voters will decide whether to prohibit gay marriages and refuse to recognize those contracted outside the state.
The Vermont ruling stems from a suit filed in July, 1997, by three couples -- one of gay men and two of lesbians -- after local town clerks denied them marriage licences. The clerks acted on the advice of the state attorney-general, who relied on a 1975 opinion by a predecessor calling same-sex marriages unconstitutional.
The couples argued that their inability to get married denied them more than 300 benefits at the state level and more than 1,000 at the federal level.
Howard Dean, the governor, has declined to state a position on same-sex marriages, saying he was awaiting the court's decision. But Douglas Racine, the lieutenant-governor, and Michael Obuchowski, the House Speaker, have said they favour same-sex marriages.
