WASHINGTON, D.C., July 22, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In 1999 the Liberal majority Canadian Parliament voted by an overwhelming 216 to 55 to uphold the legal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. Six years later a Liberal minority Parliament formally legalized homosexual ‘marriage’, giving to gay partners precisely the same legal recognition as heterosexual couples who vow lifelong committement.
The unprecedented speed with which the dramatic reversal took place, and the many similarities between the legal systems of Canada and the United States, especially that of activist courts, provoked Bradley Watson of the Heritage Foundation to write and publish a much needed guide to Canadian same-sex “marriage” for American legislators, based on the instructive and disturbing Canadian situation.
“Canada shares a number of important characteristics with the United States,” points out Watson in the highly informative eight page document. “It has a complex federal system, activist courts, and evolving public opinion on questions related to homosexuality.” Which goes to say that unless Americans learn from Canada’s demise, marriage in the United States may suffer the same devastating blow.
Speaking of the recent legalization of same-sex “marriage” Watson says that “one thing is clear from this development: Triggered by a series of court decisions, Canadian law and political attitudes have changed with remarkable speed. The rapidity and nature of these changes offer lessons for American legislators.”
Watson traces the rapid and oftentimes subtle forces and individual court cases that brought parliament and Canada’s activist courts to the point of legalizing same-sex “marriage”. Not the least of these forces is the erroneous definition of ‘human rights’ that is promulgated by homosexual activists and eventually given begrudging acceptance by traditional marriage advocates. In Canada the result of this subtle pressure was that “politicians feared the ‘anti-constitution’ or ‘anti-human rights’ labels that might be applied to them for resisting judicial supremacy…Although public opinion had not dramatically shifted, many politicians who had opposed same-sex marriage now believed that time was not on their side and that it was easier to switch than to fight.”
Perhaps the most vital lesson that Americans can learn from Canada’s experience is that given the shared similarities between the legal systems, public support is hardly necessary for same-sex “marriage” to be given legal recognition. It may very well be the decisions of a few activist courts that will determine the future of marriage. “Same-sex marriage in Canada is not being imposed as the result of the conscious choice of a liberal electorate. On the contrary, Parliament has rushed to codify a series of judicial decrees, not to mention trying to anticipate the direction of public opinion nudged (or so many thought it would be) by these decrees.”
In the United States what is becoming increasingly necessary, argues Bradley, is a Constitutional amendment proclaiming marriage to be between one man and woman, but “In the United States, it will require a nation with even greater courage and political judgment [than in Canada] to amend the Constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”
Bradley enumerates four vital lessons for American legislators: 1) The instructive and unexpected speed at which the traditional definition of marriage in Canada was distorted and destroyed. 2) “Legal logic and judicial assertiveness, if not challenged forcefully and intelligently, quickly take on lives of their own and can overwhelm weak or disorganized opposition. 3) Marriage must be protected federally since state-contained legalization of same-sex “marriage” will lead to federal recognition. 4) Available Constitutional mechanisms to resist judicial dominance on same-sex “marriage” must be employed.
Read “Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ in Canada: A Guide for American Legislators”: https://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/bg1870.cfm
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