Bro Has My Back in NH, But Canada Stabs Gay Couples in the Back

I guess you fellas know that New Hampshire Republicans are trying to repeal the state's equal-marriage law, which came into effect on January 1, 2010. But in one family, at least, family values are proving stronger than party loyalty. The story goes like this:

Craig Stowell fought with the U.S. Marines in Iraq in 2004 and now is fighting for the right of gays, like his brother, to marry in New Hampshire.

"My brother and best friend, Calvin, was tormented all the way through high school because people knew he was gay," Craig Stowell, 30, said in an online petition seeking to pressure New Hampshire legislators not to repeal the state's 2009 law that legalized gay marriage. . . .

As the New Hampshire Legislature prepares to vote on whether to repeal the law, HB 437, Craig Stowell -- who serves as the Republican co-chairman of Standing Up For New Hampshire Families -- has launched an online campaign to keep the law as it is.

"If HB 437 passes, same-sex couples will no longer be allowed to marry," he says in an online petition he has posted at www.change.org. "This mean-spirited attack is nothing more than state-sponsored bullying."

In other news, remember all those gay and lesbian couples who got hitched in Canada after equal marriage became the law of the land in 2005?  Well now a Canadian lawyer in the Justice Department of Stephen Harper's Conservative government, which won a huge majority in last year's parliamentary election, has argued before a court that foreign couples who could not marry in their home countries cannot legally marry in Canada, either - which would make several thousand gay and lesbian couples now totally unhitched, their marriages null and void.

Dan Savage, who married his husband Terry Miller in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2005, commented this morning: 

When I got out of bed, I was a married man and as soon as I got on my Twitter feed I realized I had been divorced overnight.

A shocked Olivia Chow, member of Parliament for downtown Toronto and widow of the late New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, says Harper's government has used a "back-door way" to attack same-sex marriage, and has hugely embarassed the nation with this about-face.

Video report here from the CBC, which won't let me embed it.


Update:  Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and Freedom to Marry have issued a joint statement on the news from Canada. Excerpt:

No one’s marriage has been invalidated or is likely to be invalidated. The position taken by one government lawyer in a divorce is not itself precedential. No court has accepted this view and there is no reason to believe that either Canada’s courts or its Parliament would agree with this position, which no one has asserted before during the eight years that same-sex couples have had the freedom to marry in Canada. . . .

The message for same-sex couples married in Canada remains the same as it is for same-sex couples validly married here in the United States: take every precaution you can to protect your relationship with legal documents such as powers of attorney and adoptions, as you may travel to jurisdictions that don't respect your legal relationship. There is no reason to suggest that Canadian marriages of same-sex couples are in jeopardy, or to advocate that people try to marry again elsewhere, as that could cause these couples unnecessary complications, anxiety, and expense.

Nother update:  Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Friday that equal marriage is still cool - and, most importantly, legal - in Canada, no matter where you're from:

I want to make it very clear that, in our government’s view, these marriages should be valid. We will change the Civil Marriage Act so that any marriages performed in Canada that aren't recognized in the couple's home jurisdiction will be recognized in Canada. This will apply to all marriages performed in Canada. We have been clear that we have no desire to reopen this issue – both myself and the prime minister consider this debate to be closed.

Well, that's a relief for lots of folks, I'm sure.

Canadian Stunner

Source:  CBC.com


Well, the returns are in and Canada is waking up to the biggest political upheaval in twenty years, which has redrawn the political map of our neighbor to the north.  There's a big story about each of the five national parties represented in Parliament, which I'll summarize briefly here, with links to Canadian news sources for anyone who wants to learn more.

First, the Green Party has won its first-ever elected seat in North America, with leader Elizabeth May handily winning her Saanich-Gulf Islands riding, making her the first and only Green MP in Ottawa.

The Bloc Quebecois, for the last two decades something of a spoiler party dedicated to achieving the separation of Quebec from Canada and not much else, went down in flames to a near-total wipeout under the barrage of surging NDP support in that province.  Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe lost his own seat in Parliament, and has already announced his resignation as party leader in this historic switch that brings Quebec back to the national stage as a full player in federal politics.

The other historic loss was suffered by the Liberal Party, long known as "the natural governing party of Canada," which ever since Confederation in 1867 has always been either the ruling party or the Offical Opposition.  But voters definitively put the Grits in a distant third place last night, with Michael Ignatieff losing his own riding to a Conservative challenger.  In his concession speech, Ignatieff said he would stay on as party leader as long as the party wants him to.  [Update, 9:30 a.m. Tuesday:  Ignatieff has announced he will resign and return to his academic career as soon as the party can settle on a successor.]

Smilin' Jack Layton triumphantly surfed the unexpected wave of support for the New Democratic Party in this election to become the leader of the Official Opposition, his party capturing 102 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, including seats in 8 out of 10 provinces and almost all of the Quebec ridings, which will extend NDP influence and perspective from its former position as the perennial third-place "conscience of Canada."  Some pundits are already saying Jack should enjoy the election-night celebrations because the NDP has hit its zenith and will never reach such a high-water mark in a national election again; but that, of course, remains to be seen, depending on what Layton and Co. do with their newfound popularity and power.

But the story with the biggest and most immediate effect on Canadians is that after years of minority governments, they finally elected an unbeatable majority to power.  Conservative leader Stephen Harper was swept back to Ottawa with a resounding 167-seat majority by Canadian voters, so that his party now not only has more than a majority (155 votes) but outnumbers all other parties combined - which, in a Westminster-style parliament, means that his Government is now unstoppable in practical terms:  They can win any vote, so they can exert their will howsoever they please for the next four years, until constitutionally required to hold another election.  In his victory speech to the party faithful, Harper spoke graciously of his defeated opponents and pledged to govern on behalf of all Canadians, even those who did not vote Conservative.

Which was a nice thing to say, since his Government was brought down five weeks ago in a vote of no-confidence following its being the first and only Government ever found in Contempt of Parliament in any Commonwealth country.  Some Canadian observers have characterized Harper as being petty, vindictive, secretive, ruthless, and thoroughly undemocratic in the way he has rammed through whatever legislation he wanted, or even called upon the Governor-General to simply dissolve Parliament not once, but twice - in order to avoid critical votes.  A great trick, better than a filibuster, even.

Of course, I've never been to Canada - all I know is what I read in the papers.  But your Head Trucker notes that critics of the Harper regime have said that what the Prime Minister wants for kinder, gentler Canada is to become more like the United States, with Big Business given free rein, low taxes on corporations and the wealthy, fewer and smaller social programs, big, big spending on military equipment, and the introduction of socially conservative Bible-Belt policies on issues like abortion, gay rights, minorities, immigration, and women's issues.   In the last five years, his Conservatives have blown a budget surplus accumulated by the previous Liberal Government, and racked up an enormous multi-billion-dollar deficit - which somehow reminds me of another political party south of the border.  I'm just sayin'.

But as someone wiser than me observed long ago, people generally get the government they deserve.  So it will be very interesting to see what happens now with an unbridled majority Conservative Government tromping on the accelerator and the soft-shoe socialist New Democrats trying to apply the brakes from the Opposition benches.  Whatever happens, with Quebec back at the family dinner table, so to speak, and the centrist Liberals stuck way to hell out in the political wilderness, it's sure to be a fascinating new page in Canadian history, if I'm understanding all the news correctly.


Read all about it:

CTV

CBC

The Globe and Mail

What Happened to Hope and Change?

Mike Signorille reports on a couple of disturbing topics that really make me wonder what the hell goes on in the White House.  First:

Rick Warren, who in the past had ties to the Uganda pastor who helped spearhead legislation that would execute HIV-positive gay men if enacted, will not speak out about the against the legislation, saying that "it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations."

On Meet the Press he said, "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides." As Newsweek's Lisa Miller points out, this is a guy who called abortion a "holocaust" and who certainly does what he can to stop it in this country and around the world. Surely, he believes, as a self-proclaimed moral leader, that one must speak up against injustice. That is, if he sees state executions of gay men as a true injustice at all -- or at least one that is worth upsetting the apple carts he so neatly set up in Uganda.

And is it a coincidence that the Obama administration -- in which Warren has a fan at the very top -- has not spoken out loudly enough against what's happening in Uganda and that the man who doles out the AIDS dollars -- our taxpayer dollars -- on behalf of the president to Uganda, PEPFAR chief Eric Goosby, says pretty much what Warren says? According to Newsweek.com, Goosby says his job is "not to tell a country how to put forward their legislation."

That has got to be one of the most outrageous things I've heard so far from an Obama official: We're neutral on extermination.

And then this:

A report published on TIME's web site just before the holiday has an explosive bit of information: the chief judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a while back that a lesbian federal employee who reports to him be given federal marriage benefits, and it was actually going to happen until the White House, through the Office of Personnel Management -- headed by openly gay appointee, John Berry -- refused to comply and directed the health insurance carrier of the employee not to proceed. . . .

Now Judge Kozinkski has ordered that OPM stop interfering, demanding last week that the Obama administration comply with his order. . . .  If the Obama administration, which now has less than 30 days to respond, tries to fight this, not only will it undoubtedly cause another (and much bigger, in my opinion) firestorm within the LGBT community, but it's not clear that it actually can fight it, let alone win:

[Judge Kozinski's] order last week demanded that the executive branch reverse course, and gave the Administration 30 days to enroll Golinski's wife as her health-insurance beneficiary. He made clear that if it doesn't, he's ready to use the powers of his court to enforce his decree. University of California law professor Rory Little, a former Justice Department prosecutor and chief of appeals, called the order a "bombshell." "This is like exposing the tip of a huge iceberg that nobody knew even existed," he told TIME. "It's a fascinating question: Do the courts even have the power to do this? Where does it leave things procedurally? Where can the Administration appeal? I think there are five or six lawyers in the [Solicitor General's] office scurrying around right now trying to figure out what to do with this."

And of course, another bombshell here is that the Office of Personnel Management was ordered by the White House to refuse to give a lesbian federal employee her court-ordered rights. John Berry, as head of that office, was thus apparently forced as an openly gay man to deny another gay person, and the LGBT movement itself, of rights, even in the face or a court order.Is this how openly gay appointees must operate within the Obama administration -- not as advocates on behalf of civil rights but rather as lackeys charged with blocking equal rights for their own kind? That, if true, is enormously troubling.

Now, on the one hand, fellas, that last part is a childish question.  When you go to work for an outfit, any outfit, whether you are straight, gay, or extraterrestrial, of course you have to follow the rules and policies of that organization if you expect to keep drawing a paycheck.  And if that gripes your chaps, you need to go find another job.  If you ain't the big boss, you don't get to do and say whatever you think is right:  you take the company's pay, you're a company man, whether it's Wal-Mart or the White House.

On the other hand, what just what the hell does all this say about Obama and his highest advisors, the policymakers? 

God bless Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, who just this weekend at the big Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting down in Trinidad, "raised concerns" about the draconian anti-gay laws directly with Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.  That's diplomatic talk for telling him he's full of shit.  In an extremely polite way, of course.

Your Head Trucker is also proud to report that Stephen Harper - Canada's Conservative Prime Minister, who tried unsuccessfully to roll back equal marriage in that country three years ago - also talked to Museveni and told the press he finds the anti-gay bill "deplorable."  I'm glad to hear you testify, Brother Harper.

The Advocate reports that the Ugandan embassies of both France and the United States have issued statements condemning the bill.

Ah, but what about our own President - you know, the guy who just won the Nobel Peace Prize?  The fellow the whole world is so in love with right now.  Has he said one fucking word about it?  Will he?

Or is he the kind of nicey-nice, don't-rock-the-boat, I'm-everybody's-friend kind of guy who won't say a goddamn thing until the bodies are already piled shoulder-high?*

While we're on that subect, would it have cost him so much of his precious time - I know, his plate is just so full, what with healthcare, the economy, the war, yada yada yada - but would it really have wrecked his day to speak just one sentence against stripping gays of their civil marriage rights in Maine?

I swear to God, guys, if Obama turns out to be fake and a fraud and a con artist like so many others, I will never, ever believe another sonofabitching politician again as long as I live, not if I live to be a hundred.

I used to say, I was never so disappointed in a man as I was in Bill Clinton.  But this could top even that.

* - Horrifying provisions of the anti-gay bill after the jump.

Canadian Crackup

No, that's not a new brand of beer, it's the big brawl going down in Canada's parliament. I know for Canadians it's quite a serious issue, but it is mildly amusing to read about the current political crisis up there.

The current Prime Minister, Conservative party leader Stephen Harper - who tried to undo gay marriage up there in 2006 - has stepped on his opponents' toes big time. They are now out for blood and determined to form a coalition to take over the reins of power. Harper is just as determined not to let them do so.

Canadian newscasts, editorials, and blogs are full of invective from both sides of the issue, with people yelling about Harper being a fascist dictator and the other side screaming about the undemocratic power grab by socialists. Sound familiar?

Hell. Those people just don't know what the "fascist" vs. "socialist" war is all about, do they?

As veteran correspondent Neil Macdonald observes in this witty explanation of the crisis - written especially for Americans - their Conservatives are sort of equivalent to our Democrats. Sort of.

And their socialist party (yes, a real one!), the New Democrats, are rather like, well, um - would you believe George W. Bush? Sort of. Just go read the article.

The left-leaning parties were all poised to shoot Harper down next week like a wolf from an airplane, and thought victory was in the bag. But the Governor-General has just granted Harper's request to prorogue Parliament (don't ask) until Jan. 26, so he's safe till then, and perhaps in the meantime everybody will have a few Molsons, watch some hockey, sing Christmas carols, and settle down.

Or maybe they'll just keep duking it out and letting the fur fly till Parliament resumes and votes one way or another. I'm just glad we don't have to go through all that for another four years, aren't you?

Unless, of course, our Supreme Court rules that Obama can't be president.

OMFG.

Canada's little political spat would be nothing in comparison to what would happen here, eh?