Ottawa Broadens Gay Marriage Question To Supreme Court

The federal government is broadening its request to the Supreme Court for a ruling on the contentious issue of gay marriage, a move that will almost certainly delay a high court hearing until after an expected spring election.

It could also delay any follow-up legislative action by Parliament for more than a year. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, making the announcement Wednesday, insisted the new government of Prime Minster Paul Martin is committed to equality for gays and is not backing off the stand taken by the federal Liberals under Jean Chretien.

"We are reaffirming our position in support of same-sex marriage," said Cotler. "This is unwavering. I reiterate it today."

Nevertheless, the government is asking the high court to consider a legal question that hadn't been a part of the case until now - whether the traditional definition of marriage, as a union of man and woman, is compatible with the Charter of Rights.

http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id=1900A8C6-E3EB-4915-A2A7-FFF25BBEFA4E

be interesting to see where this one goes...the US should pay attention....


love the squirrel pic...but if he's from Ottawa...shouldn't he be black,eh??

Lived there a few years back...really beautiful city!

Peace
DR

They need to just open up marriage equality now and get it over with. The court won't accept less and they know it.

Paul Martin has made a big deal out of "democratizing" Parliament -- letting the little greaseballs on the Liberal back benches be seen and heard by their constituents a little more, and delude themselves into thinking they matter for something other than jumping when the party's fingers are snapped.

Well, the little greaseballs are homophobes who don't want anybody tinkering with marriage. So he's on the horns of a dilemma.

This is the way of avoiding it. Screwing up the Supreme Court's schedule by starting all over again, which is what adding another question does, and pushing doomsday back a few months into 2005, obviates any need for debate in the House -- a debate he is going to have to let the backbench greaseballs have at some point.

Obviously the Supreme Court of Canada is going to say that the definition of marriage is under Parliament's (and not the provinces') jurisdiction, the question they've been asked, since that's what the blood constitution says (and I've been saying here for months). Obviously the Court would also never agree that there is justification (under section 1 of the Constitution, by which rights violations may be "demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society") for denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry. Obviously any legislation that the backbenchers and their right-wing twins on the other side of the House managed to get enacted, denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry, would be struck down by the Supreme Court at some date in the distant future.

But hell. They wouldn't have embarrassed Martin at election time, and he wouldn't have annoyed them by reneging on that promise to give them some lines in the play.

Playing politics with people's rights is just so nasty and ugly.

.