This week’s media meltdown over same-sex marriage for foreign tourists was one of the more disgraceful episodes in the long history of phoney controversies in this country: a toxic mix of shrewd lawyering, shoddy reporting and partisan opportunism, all without the slightest reference to the relevant, and easily obtainable, facts.
The debacle began with a front-page screamer in Thursday morning’s Globe and Mail. In a “reversal of policy,” it reported, the Harper government had indicated it would not recognize as lawful thousands of marriages solemnized in Canada between visiting gay and lesbian couples since the practice was formally legalized here in 2005. The story suggested the government’s “hard line” had “cast sudden doubt” on the legal status not only of these couples, most of whom stayed just long enough to pick up their licences, but of gay couples living in Canada as well.
The government’s “about-face” was “revealed” in legal papers filed in the case of a lesbian couple who, having married in Canada, now wished to divorce here, and for the same reason: as they could not legally marry in either of the jurisdictions where they happened to live, Florida or England, neither could they divorce there. Of course, by the same token divorce would hardly seem necessary. But, well, it was important to them emotionally.
Full Story from the National Post
Click here for gay wedding resources in Canada.
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Paul Cameron’s Family Research Institute knows what is to blame for Canada’s declining fertility rate…gay rights, of course!
