A Kiss to Canada

A happy Canadian couple married in Banff

December 7, 2006, is a day I will never forget. That's when Canada's parliament gave a ringing defeat to Prime Minister Harper's attempt to overturn equal marriage in that country, by a vote of 175 to 123.

This was the third vote supporting same-sex marriage taken by three Parliaments under three Prime Ministers in three different years. The Supreme Court of Canada had also ruled that not only was gay marriage allowed under their Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it flowed from it as an integral, essential part of the law of the land.

What a thought.

I pulled up the CTV and CBC broadcasts of the vote in the House of Commons, and I wept as member after member answered the roll call, their names reflecting the ethnicities of Canada, drawn from the four corners of the globe. And I watched as one after another stood up to preserve equal marriage in that nation, the equal respect and dignity of all gay people. It was a breathtaking moment.

Thanks, Canada.

Because I foresaw that if equal marriage prevailed in Canada, it would one day spread to this nation too, and all around the world. I hope I live to see that day. I wish my late husband and I could have seen it, and married as we wanted to.

Canadians can marry. Why can't we?

Member of Parliament Olivia Chow defending equal marriage in the House of Commons before the final vote:

CBC News story and video on the defeat of the motion here.