GLBT News

[thuringwethil]

Ontario Appeal Court rules in favour of same-sex marriage

Canadian Press



Toronto — The right to marry should be extended to same-sex couples, Ontario's Appeal Court ruled Tuesday in a decision that effectively deems Canadian law on traditional marriage unconstitutional.



"The existing common-law definition of marriage violates the couple's equality rights on the basis of sexual orientation under [the charter]," the 61-page written ruling said.



The court also declared the current definition invalid and demanded the law be changed. It ordered the clerk of the City of Toronto to issue marriage licences to the same-sex couples involved in the case.



"We're gettin' married in the morning," a jubilant Michael Leshner sang with his partner Michael Stark outside the courtroom.



Mr. Leshner, 55, is a Toronto Crown attorney who has been pushing for same-sex marriage for years. He and his long-time partner Mr. Stark, 45, planned to marry later Tuesday.



"Go tell Jean Chrétien, it's dead," Mr. Leshner urged reporters.



"The argument's over. No more political discussion, we've won, the charter won, it's a great day for Canada."



The ruling came after a federal government lawyer argued that marriage is a universal concept based on the union of man and woman that cannot be extended to gay and lesbian couples.



Roslyn Levine, on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada, said the concept of marriage has always been based on two genders brought together, built on the ideals of children, permanency and fidelity.



Ottawa was challenging a controversial lower court ruling that said Canadian law is unconstitutional because it recognizes only opposite-sex unions. Common law defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman" — a violation of the equality section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the divisional court said.



The court then gave the federal government two years to revamp its laws, in effect clearing the way for same-sex marriage.



Ontario's Appeal Court decision joins court rulings in British Columbia and Quebec that also back same-sex unions.



Ontario Premier Ernie Eves said Ontario won't be issuing licences to gay couples anytime soon, despite the ruling. He said he has no objection to same-sex marriages, but believes there are legal concerns about how children would be affected.



"What two people do in a relationship with each other is really none of anybody else's business," he said.



"Now there are other issues of course that are involved with that and some of them are fiscal or monetary and some of them involve children. Those are different matters."



Mr. Eves says it's up to the federal government to decide if same-sex marriages should be legalized in Canada.



"You go back to the issue of which government really has constitutional responsibility for the legalization of marriages and I believe courts have ruled previously that that is the federal government," he said.



But the City of Toronto announced Tuesday following the court decision that the city clerk "will begin issuing marriage licences to all those who meet the requirements for a marriage licence, including same-sex couples."



Heritage Minister Sheila Copps and federal leadership candidate said Ottawa should accept the ruling and not appeal it to the Supreme Court of Canada.



"You can't have a half equality," she said in Ottawa. "You can't say: `Well, you're equal, but.'"



"When you're speaking about equality you're talking about allowing people to exercise all rights under the law including all rights that are available to all others."



The British Columbia Court of Appeal said May 1 that governments should recognize gay marriage when it overturned a British Columbia Supreme Court ruling that said marriage should be restricted to heterosexuals. It gave Ottawa until July 12, 2004 to change the law preventing gays and lesbians from marrying.



Justice Minister Martin Cauhon has until June 30 to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to review the B.C. ruling or the decision will stand.



A Quebec court has also backed same-sex marriage rights and asked Ottawa to re-examine marriage laws.



An all-party committee is drafting a much-anticipated report on how Parliament should handle the difficult social issue.



Polls indicate a slight majority of Canadians favour legalization of same-sex marriages.



With a report from Allison Lawlor

[Kalita]

Thuringwethil beat me to it!



I'll just chime in and say how exceedingly proud I am of my province's courts, and of my city. I can't wait to see the same-sex couples rushing to the clerk's office!



Now if only there was federal recognition... the one sticky spot. This government can't do much with its lame-duck PM, so it may be up to the Supreme Court (who will rule in favour; that's basically without question). It'd be nice to see the feds' review process actually make some progress, we'll just have to see.

"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?"

- Marilyn Pittman

[jeepchick scully]

I finally have a reason to move to Canada! Now if only the U.S. can follow in the same footsteps...



Shanna

[Warduke]

Here the second part of this story...

Quote:

---

Gov't Changes Mind on Gay Employee Event



       

White House - AP Cabinet & State

Gov't Changes Mind on Gay Employee Event



By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer



WASHINGTON - A group of gay and lesbian Justice Department employees aren't being prevented from holding their annual event at agency headquarters after all. They'll just have to pay for it themselves.



       



That explanation was given Tuesday by Justice Department officials who said they never intended to flatly bar the DOJ Pride group from holding its awards ceremony on June 18 in the agency's Great Hall.



Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said the only change in policy was that the DOJ Pride event would no longer officially be sponsored by the agency, meaning the group's members would have to foot any costs themselves.



Under the Bush administration, he added, DOJ Pride had been the only Justice Department employee organization that was given official sponsorship.



"They will not be officially sponsored this year, just like every other group," Corallo said. "They took that to mean they couldn't have the event."



The president of DOJ Pride did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment. Last week, the group said it was told the event couldn't be held because President Bush has not issued a proclamation designating a gay pride month as former President Clinton did.



Reports of the denial sparked outrage among gay and lesbian groups and from Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who wrote an angry letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft questioning the Justice Department's commitment to fairness.



Ashcroft had promised during his Senate confirmation hearings in 2001 that he would continue to allow DOJ Pride to hold its event.



David Smith, spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group in Washington, praised the department for reversing what he called its previous "outright denial" of the event. But he said withdrawal of department sponsorship still represents a step backward.



"Sponsorship sends an important message to the employee group: that their work is valued," Smith said.

---

---

Lil' Trevor : Always the life of the party.

[russ]

This is indeed a decision long overdue, and reason to be proud of the Ontario Court System. However, the federal government has indicated that they may appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, as they have appealed similar provincial court decisions in the past.



All concerned Canadian citizens can express their opinion by contacting the Rt. Hon. Jean Chretien, Prime Minister (pm@pm.gc.ca), and the Hon. M. Cauchon, Minister of Justice (Cauchon.M@parl.gc.ca).



Below is the e-mail message my wife and I just sent to the above gentlemen, as well as to our local M.P.



Dear Sir:



Today the Ontario Appeals Court ruled that the province is required to register same-sex marriages. We applaud this decision, and urge the Government of Canada to support it by withdrawing all appeals, current or future.



The Court's definition of marriage as: "the voluntary union for life of two persons to the exclusion of all others" should stand as the definitive criteria for marriage in this country.



We write as a long-married heterosexual couple, who perceive no threat to either the institution of marriage, or our Christian faith, by legalizing the already-existing relationships of our gay and lesbian fellow-citizens. The Liberal Party has always stood for respect for all people, and we urge you to uphold that tradition by allowing this court decision to stand unchallenged.





Russ

[thuringwethil]

Well Kalita, Paul Martin (For those who don't know he's the front runner for the leadership of the governing liberals) has said that he would, when he becomes PM, introduce legislation legalising marriage if the Ontario court ruled the way he did. I can find any print reporting on this but CBC Radio One has mentioned it.

[bronwyn]

Canadian Kittens interetsed in reading more about the struggle for legal same-sex marriages and/or want to know what they can do to help should check out the following links:

http://www.egale.ca

http://www.samesexmarriage.ca



xo,

Bronwyn (who is busy writing letters)

[tkheaven]

TheStar.com



Ontario will register gay marriages



Couples from as far away as Nova Scotia, Florida inquire about Ontario licences



FROM CANADIAN PRESS



Telephones at the Toronto city hall marriage licence office were "ringing off the hook" officials said today as gay and lesbian couples across Canada tried to take advantage of an Ontario court ruling that legalized same-sex marriages in the province.

Ontario's attorney general promised the province will abide by the court ruling and acknowledge the marriages of gay and lesbian couples.



Asked if Ontario would register the marriages, Norm Sterling said: "Absolutely."



"We said during the appeal process that the province of Ontario would follow the court ruling. We made that clear during the process," he said.



Sterling said it would be "difficult" to take away the marriages if the Supreme Court of Canada reversed the decision.



Ontario's Appeal Court decision joins court rulings in British Columbia and Quebec that also back same-sex unions.



However, it differs in that it calls for the new definition to take place immediately, allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry now.



Couples from as far away as Nova Scotia and Orlando, Fla., have inquired about Ontario licences in the wake of the Appeal Court decision that pronounced Ottawa's definition of marriage unconstitutional, said employees fielding calls at Toronto City Hall.



"Our phones are ringing off the hook," said one worker. "After the news coverage and all, I guess they're all anxious to get in."



In Toronto, 21 same-sex couples applied for licences today, one day after the province's highest court demanded the federal government define marriage as a union between "two persons" instead of "one man and one woman."



Three of them were from outside Toronto - Guelph, Oakville, and Barrie - but none from outside the province, said city spokesman Brad Ross.



Those wishing to get a marriage licence in Ontario don't need to live in the province or even live in Canada, said Ross.



However, they must still travel to Ontario because the Appeal Court decision is not binding across the country, say law experts.



A same-sex couple outside of Ontario would have to go to court in their province to test the law and have it changed in their jurisdiction, said constitutional law expert Neil Finkelstein.



"Generally speaking, absent a good reason, a lower court in a different province will follow the court of appeal of another province unless there's a good reason not to," he said.



"My guess is you're going to find the authorities in the different provinces saying no until they find out how the land lies."



More optimistic observers suggested those seeking a marriage licence could do so anywhere in Canada, since the ruling redefines federal law.



"There's nothing preventing a same-sex couple in Saskatchewan, let's say, from going to their local (vital statistics office), filling out the licence application and their (province) choosing to issue that," said John Fisher, director of advocacy for the gay and lesbian group EGALE.



"That's subject to their willingness to act on the court's decision but the green light has been given by the Ontario Court of Appeal."



Of course, the greatest likelihood of a same-sex couple successfully getting a licence is Ontario where the law is crystal clear, he notes.



In the meantime, it's still to be determined whether couples who travel to Ontario for a legal wedding can be assured their marital status will remain intact when they return to their home province.



"A marriage is a marriage and it's legal across the country," Fisher said by cell phone from the city hall in Ottawa, where he watched two lesbian couples become the city's first to obtain same-sex marriage licences.



"They have marriages that are valid in law, that can't be taken away by anybody and the legality of those marriages is applicable across Canada. If in practice some decision-maker refuses to acknowledge the validity of them, then that person would be acting outside the law."



Lisa Lachance and Heather Gass, both 30, got marriage licences about nine months after holding a candle-light union ceremony near Peggy's Cove, N.S., in which they exchanged informal vows.



Dozens of friends and family members watched them proclaim their love in their home province, but it wasn't until after they moved to Ontario that they were able to make it official.



"We're thrilled, absolutely thrilled," said Gass, who now lives in Ottawa.



Jesse Clark and Beth Ward, both 28 and from Ottawa, also picked up a licence.



A decision on whether Ottawa will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada had not yet been made today.



Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has said Ottawa recognizes it must move quickly toward a "national solution" to the same-sex debate but did not say when he would issue a response.



If the federal government were to seek leave to appeal and the Supreme Court granted leave, the high court may also decide to uphold the judgment - which would make the ruling binding on all provinces, said Finkelstein.



There is also the possibility that Ottawa could seek a stay, which would suspend the ruling and prevent any same-sex marriages until the issue is revisited.



It is that fear that has scores of same-sex couples anxiously securing legal weddings while they can, said Fisher.



"Once a couple is validly married, they're validly married," Fisher said. "No courts, no politician can take that away from these couples."



Not so, says Finkelstein. If the ruling is ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court, any same-sex marriage that took place would be annulled.



"If (the statute) was ultimately upheld, the statute would say what marriage is and those people wouldn't be married according to that statute," said Finkelstein.

Tk's new and improved "GrrArgg"...

---

Tara ate her, devoured her from beneath. -The Edge of Silence giving new meaning to season seven's catch phrase.
"You are the sexiest and goofiest kitten I've met." - Anonymous kitten at MR con

[tkheaven]

This is something I wish could've been years ago...at least people are slowly getting better at acceptance... (the two girls are so cute!)



WMBC.com



Out at the Prom



More gay teens than ever are taking same-sex dates to prom. And instead of sparking controversy, schools are saying, what’s the big deal?



By Julie Scelfo

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE





June 9 — Allen Wolff readied himself for prom like millions of other teenage boys. On the afternoon of May 25, the 17-year-old from Syracuse, New York, showered and shaved, leaving intact a thin goatee, donned a rental tux and silver vest, then coated his normally spiky locks with a generous portion of hair gel.

AFTER ESCORTING HIS date into the balloon-enhanced splendor of the Baker High School prom, he enjoyed a night that he later described as “absolutely amazing.” “We danced, ate chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate chip cannolis, and drank lots and lots of soda,” he reported. Yet unlike the other boys at the dance, the date on his arm was not a winsome girl in a graceful dress, but Misko Lencek-Inagaki, a boy in a black tux and silver bowtie.

Allen and Misko are joining peers from Wisconsin to West Virginia in revolutionizing the traditional high school prom. More gay teens than ever are turning out for this year’s big night in gowns and tuxes—or gowns and gowns, or tuxes and tuxes. But instead of sparking controversy, schools across the country are welcoming them. “It’s exploding,” says Alice Leeds, a spokesperson for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a nationwide advocacy group known as PFLAG. Brenda Melton, president of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), says that it has become almost commonplace in urban and suburban areas for a student to bring a date of the same sex to the prom—and that in most schools, it’s really no big deal.

Today’s school administrators say they want an event that’s welcoming for everyone. In fact, officials are vastly more concerned about “bellybuttons and low-cut outfits” than whether a student is holding hands with a member of the same sex. Ritch Savin-Williams, a psychology professor at Cornell University who has been studying gay and bisexual teens for three decades, says he used to clip news articles about the rare teen who dared to out him or herself at prom. Now, he says, “I don’t even cut them out anymore because it’s no big deal. Now it’s like ‘eh, who cares?’”

Such indifference is a reaction gay teenagers in earlier generations could only dream about. In 1980, a Rhode Island youth named Aaron Fricke had to fight all the way up to the U.S. District Court for permission to bring a friend, Paul, to the Cumberland High School prom. Although the court ruled that making a statement about sexuality is federally protected free speech, the date was still considered so scandalous that it made national headlines.

But when Sophia Lanza-Weil arrived at her Portland, Oregon prom a few weeks ago, it garnered barely a notice. “She wore a suit but I wanted to wear a dress,” said Lanza-Weil, who shared the night with her girlfriend, Adriyn Hayes. “We’ve been dating for over a year. So I don’t think it was a big shock to anyone that we walked through the door....We actually had a very good time.”

Over the last few decades, a significant shift has taken place in how society views lesbians and gays. In contrast to past decades—when images of homosexuals were either crude stereotypes or non-existent—today people with alternate sexual orientations appear everywhere from MTV to The New York Times’ wedding announcement pages. Even if homosexuality is not fully accepted, it’s at least acknowledged, making it far easier for young gay people to identify themselves as such.

As a result, kids are coming out at younger ages: One study by Cornell University’s Savin-Williams puts the average age of first self-identification at 16 for males and 17 for females, down from the early-to-mid-twenties in the 1970s. Also, high school clubs that promote awareness of gay issues—and which also offer gay and bisexual teens a safe place to be themselves—are flourishing throughout the country. Kevin Jennings, a former history teacher who sponsored one of the first Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) in 1989 in Concord, Massachusetts, now heads a national association of the clubs, called GLSEN, which includes more than 1,750 affiliates in all 50 states, up from 900 in 2001. Armed with support and validation from these clubs, kids are demanding the full privileges of their straight peers. “Prom is the central social ritual of high school life, and anyone who goes to high school knows that,” says Jennings. “For [non-straight] students, it’s an important symbol of whether or not they’re really part of a community. They don’t want just a ‘separate but equal’ prom. They want to be part of the main prom, too.”

School administrators seem to agree that there’s no reason these kids shouldn’t be themselves. “I went to the administration and asked if it was all right if I wore a tuxedo and went to prom with a girl,” said Jennifer Vaught of Aurora, Colorado. “They said, ‘All right, sure,’ ... It was kind of funny, when we first got to prom [my date Ashley and I] had to go to the bathroom. When I walked in there, everybody stopped putting on their makeup and looked at me strange. Then I told them, ‘It’s all right, I’m a girl, too.’ And they were like, ‘Phew!’” Nick Burrows, a junior at North High School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, said the biggest problem he faced at the prom was from disbelieving peers. “Some of them were kind of confused, trying to figure out whether it was a joke or something like that,” says Burrows, who attended with a friend named Andy. “But most people either know me, or already know [that I’m gay] so it wasn’t really a big deal.”

Despite the fact that most of Gen Y may be at ease watching two male classmates boogie down on the dance floor, it remains too taboo for many people to accept. In May, the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project received a phone call from a troubled bisexual girl in Utah who went to the prom and danced with her girlfriend until a teacher asked them to leave midway through the night. “Their prom has a promenade where everyone is introduced. They were in line to do the [walk] when the teacher tapped one of them on the arm and said ‘You’re not a boy!’ and kicked them out,” says ACLU’s Paul Cates. “The girls were very upset.”

But kids who dare to out themselves at prom say they’re receiving expressions of support, too. “At one point, this girl came up to us and by the look on her face, I’m thinking, ‘Oh God, here it comes,’” recounts Allen Wolff. “Instead she said, ‘I’m proud of what you guys are doing. It really takes guts. I support you all the way.’ That was just amazing.” Amazing indeed.



© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

Tk's new and improved "GrrArgg"...

---

Tara ate her, devoured her from beneath. -The Edge of Silence giving new meaning to season seven's catch phrase.
"You are the sexiest and goofiest kitten I've met." - Anonymous kitten at MR con

Edited by: tkheaven  at: 6/12/03 8:38 am

[WebWarlock]

This story has also been picked up by MSNBC.com



www.msnbc.com/news/924401.asp



Warlock

-----

Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks

"There has to be an invisible sun. It gives its heat to everyone.

There has to be an invisible sun. That gives us hope when the whole day's done." - The Police Invisible Sun

[xita]

sigh that's so cute. And yeah I remember that HBO made for tv thing, with the 2 girls goign to prom. I still have it on tape. Times change and I am so happy!

-----------------------------------
"I love you all!!! -
bytrsuite

[funkyasian]

yeah, if that was the case when i went to highschool, maybe i would've been a little less confused as to why i felt the things i did towards my best friend (who, incidentally, is still my best friend even after i told her how i felt about her...we got over that...gotta love that girl) - though i think i still wouldn't have come out in hs...they were too homophobic...



i still applaud all those teens...takes courage to stand out and proclaim your individuality...



~steph

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. ~ Oscar Wilde

Edited by: funkyasian at: 6/13/03 5:28 am

[bronwyn]

My godfathers are gay. They've been together for 35 years and are like a second set of parents to me. Yesterday they went to the City Hall in a city just outside of Toronto and got their marriage licence. Then they went and bought wedding bands. And champagne. They said they had to laugh at one thing - those licences need to be redone. My 6 foot tall posh 60 year old British godfather is the "bride".

xo,

Bronwyn

[Gatito Grande]

Too funny, bronwyn! Tell your godfathers "Congrats" for me. Good on 'em!



GG Oh Canada: where the government will give ya the license, and the Church (Anglican Diocese of New Westminster, in B.C.) will marry ya. Gotta love it. God Bless *What Country*??? Out

[skittles]

I found this article at CNN/AP ...



Gay sites earn profits, respect



Sunday, June 15, 2003 Posted: 8:43 AM EDT (1243 GMT)



SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- At the height of the dot-com boom, Lowell Selvin ran an Internet company with a Web site boasting 2.5 million registered users -- an audience that surveys showed was both trendsetting and unusually loyal.



Yet Selvin often came away empty-handed from meetings with potential investors. Many venture capitalists just weren't ready to stake money on Gay.com.



"We got calls from analysts and reviewers saying, 'Your metrics are incredible, but there were one or two partners in the room who were fearful, homophobic, or whatever and made the decision not to invest,"' he recalled.



Getting attention



Four years later, its successor business PlanetOut Partners has grown to four gay- and lesbian-oriented sites and just posted its first profitable quarter. With backing from J.P. Morgan, Flatiron Partners and America Online, as well as advertising from dozens of Fortune 500 companies, the company dominates its niche in a way any high-tech entrepreneur would envy.



It is still small by corporate standards -- last year, it had revenue of $14 million, with first-quarter earnings of $103,000 equal to what Wal-Mart makes every seven minutes. But PlanetOut's success is about more than dollars, backers say.



It has created a business both gay enough for San Francisco and buttoned-down enough for Wall Street.



"These folks at PlanetOut didn't get into this business to become overnight millionaires," said Jerry Colonna, a J.P. Morgan partner who sits on PlanetOut's board of directors and was its first major investor. "They did it because of a deep and abiding passion for creating a successful gay-owned business -- and proving that being gay-owned doesn't necessarily mean not successful."



Headquartered in San Francisco's Financial District, in corporate digs that once housed The Gap's online division, PlanetOut Partners is the result of Gay.com's 1999 acquisition of competitor PlanetOut.com. At the time, Gay.com was known primarily for its chat rooms, while PlanetOut carried more original content.



Different personalities



Today, both sites still have their own personalities -- Gay.com is the saucy "Queer As Folk" to PlanetOut's more sentimental "Will and Grace" -- but offer a similar mix of news, online matchmaking, health and financial advice. Thanks to the acquisitions of OutandAbout.com and Kleptomaniac.com, the sites also offer information about gay-friendly travel destinations and merchandise such as muscle T-shirts, condoms, and DVDs.



The company owes its status partly to the fact that gays tend to be particularly active Internet users and more comfortable than heterosexuals with shopping and dating online.



"The draw for me was that it was a way to get 'out' in the community without really risking anything," said Suzanne Armstrong, 33, a PlanetOut.com member from Canada who uses the site to meet other women and to get the latest gay news. "It's generally expected that if I am a woman, then I should be looking for a man. So how do you approach someone who you have never met and find out what their sexual preference is without getting beat up?"



The company's two principal sites have 6.9 million registered members, numbers Selvin says make PlanetOut the world's largest media company serving the gay market.



Delivering the gay market



Planet Out's advertisers include such major corporations as Sears, Nieman Marcus, American Airlines and Visa.



"The fact is they have brought together more people from the community than any other medium to date has," said Mike Wilke, executive director of Commercial Closet Association, a group that monitors gay-oriented advertising. The three largest gay magazines, The Advocate, Out and Girlfriends, have a combined circulation of about 300,000.



Today, 60 percent of its revenue comes from a subscription-based personals service, launched two years ago, that allows prospective daters to check out each other's profiles and chat.



With revenue projected to hit $24 million this year and expenses holding steady, Selvin is deciding whether it is time to take PlanetOut public.



Sometimes, he runs into representatives of venture capital firms that decided not to invest in Gay.com early on. He said he smiles politely, but feels vindicated when they tell him: "Out of all our possible portfolio companies, I wish we had invested in you."



(end of article)

skittles



How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall, till I can see so wide, river and trees and cattle and all over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green, down on the roof so brown--Up in the air I go flying again, up in the air and down! - The Swing - RLStevenson

[Gatito Grande]

GG here w/ a Sunday heads-up again: the Supreme Court's sodomy decision could come down tomorrow, June 16.



It's such a little thing, really: that no state in the Union make our sex lives illegal.



However, getting rid of them---sodomy laws---is to get rid of the underpinning in the. U.S. legal system which says that we queers are sinful and disgusting.



Say No to piss-poor Biblical interpretations, and Yes to Justice . . . and Pleasure!



GG The "sin of Sodom" is *rape* not consensual sex (between anyone)! Out

[Kalita]

Well, it looks like the Feds might just bite the bullet and do it themselves: www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/0..._cab030617



I hope they do, just so Ralph Klein can't butt out by using the notwithstanding clause.



ETA: Apparently my legal knowledge isn't perfect, even if it's a federal law and not a court decision, a province can choose to abstain (with the notwithstanding clause of the Charter).



Still, even if Alberta decides to flount Federal legislation (a daunting prospect; only Quebec has ever done so, on language issues), there would soon be court challenges within the province to reverse that.



We'll just have to see what works out as the legislation is formed and tabled.

Edited by: Kalita  at: 6/18/03 6:43 am

[Gatito Grande]

You were right, Kalita: once again, Canada never fails to impress!



Thanks for the link: following it over to the "Canadian Same-Sex Chronology," www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/b...ights.html I can certainly see why kd lang got the hell outta Alberta!



GG Too bad, cuz it's such a beautiful place: Out

[Warduke]

Quote:

---

Canadian PM says same-sex marriage court decision will stand





OTTAWA (AFP) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said the federal government will not appeal an Ontario court decision legalizing same-sex marriages, sending Canada on the path to becoming only the third country to legalize gay marriages.

       



"We will not be appealing the recent decision on the definition on marriage, rather we will be proposing legislation that will protect the rights of churches and religious organizations to sanctify marriage as they define it.



"At the same, we will ensure that our legislation includes and legally recognize the union of same-sex couples. As soon as the legislation is drafted it will be referred to the Supreme Court. After that it will be put to a free vote in the House of Commons," Chretien told reporters here.



Exactly one week ago, the Ontario Court of Appeal Tuesday struck down the federal definition of marriage as being solely between a man and a woman, saying it went against Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.



The court then redefined marriage as being between two persons and immediately ordered Ontario clerks to register same-sex marriages.



Since then, more than 100 couples already have been married in Toronto, Canada's largest city.



The court decision has been firmly rejected by Christian leaders. Hundreds of evangelical Christians protested against it in Toronto on Monday.



"This is part of the fundamental law of the country," Cauchon said, responding to a question of why the federal government finally decided to stop appealing provincial court decisions in favor of same-sex marriages.



While the federal government defines marriage, Canada's 10 provinces and three territories are responsible for registering the unions.



Last month, a top court in the western province of British Columbia ruled that the federal law against gay marriages was discriminatory.



Polls show the country divided over the issue of gay marriages, with the provinces of Quebec and British Columbia more strongly in favor but a majority in the prairie provinces opposed to them.

---

---

Lil' Trevor : Always the life of the party.

[bronwyn]

My godfathers were married last night. It was amazing. I cried - it was like watching your parents get married after spending lifetime together being told they couldn't wed. They were married in their backyard by a judge (who did a fantastic job - so eloquent) surrounded by a ton of flowers and under an arch of rainbow balloons! I'll have pics later in the week if anyone is interested.

xo

Bronwyn

[Gatito Grande]

Oh, bronwyn, So Happy!



Cheers! (It's not the champagne I would have preferred, but it *does* accurately reflect my budget )



to the grooms!



GG *Do* share the pictures---give all us lgbt's hope of weddings to come! Out

[willowntaraslovechild]

www.suntimes.com/output/n...art18.html





Cook County close to recognizing same-sex couples



June 18, 2003



BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter







Same-sex couples throughout Cook County would enjoy the same right to register as domestic partners as residents of Oak Park and San Francisco, under a proposal introduced Tuesday in the Cook County Board.



Commissioner Mike Quigley (D-Chicago) has 11 of the county board's 17 members signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors. Sharing the top line with him as sponsors are County Board President John Stroger and County Board Finance Chairman John Daley, the mayor's brother. All of that bodes well for the measure's passage.



None of the board's five Republicans is listed as co-sponsor, though Quigley hopes to get one or two of their votes. In the past, religious groups have opposed some of Quigley's gay rights proposals such as extending benefits to same-sex partners of county employees.



Right now, heterosexual couples seeking to wed get a marriage certificate from Cook County Clerk David Orr's office.



Under the proposal, Orr's office would grant domestic partnership certificates to same-sex couples who plunk down the same $30 that heterosexuals do to get their unions officially recognized.



"The intangible benefit is the value to those who would use it to show that their relationship matters and they want to show that commitment to the world," Quigley said.



Orr's Deputy Clerk Brandon Neese said the office could get the program up and running with no additional staff or resources.



"We're ready to implement it," Neese said. "We'll have to create an application form and have a database."



The program will be a useful resource for companies that offer benefit packages to partners of same-sex couples.



"It's a way to help corporations determine who is a domestic partner," Quigley said.



The county's program will not change the U.S. tax code or state law and same-sex couples must file taxes singly.



"It doesn't change anything in Probate Court or state law," Quigley said. "But it's evidence a relationship existed. Right now, [under] the state visitation act in hospitals, a third cousin has a higher relationship than someone in a relationship for years. Something like this we think would help the state move forward on changing state law."



Quigley plans to call a meeting of his Human Relations Committee to discuss the proposal in the next few weeks. The ordinance also would authorize Orr's office to issue "affidavits of termination" when a same-sex relationship ends.



Criteria required for the certificate would include that "The domestic partners are in a close and committed relationship of mutual financial and emotional support and intend to remain in such a relationship."



Other counties that have domestic partner registries include Los Angeles County, Calif.; Broward County, Fla.; Westchester County, N.Y.; and Travis County, Texas.

[WebWarlock]

Woo Hoo.

And that would even extend to where I live. Cook county is huge and covers millions of people.



Course it is not as good as what they are doing in Canada.



I watching the news about Canada and the man they had speaking for the Canadian goverenment kept going over the pros and cons of same-sex marriages. Then the interviewer ask if he thought it would help tourism and suddenly he got all excited like he hadn't thought of that and said "oh yeah we love those American dollars!"



I found it funny since I go fishing in Canada all the time and have heard the same thing time and time again.



Warlock

-----

Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks

"There has to be an invisible sun. It gives its heat to everyone.

There has to be an invisible sun. That gives us hope when the whole day's done." - The Police Invisible Sun

[Amymlc]

That's great news, but how can part of a state recognize the marriages, but not the whole state? Hmmm...America doesn't make sense a lot of the times.

[skittles]

Unfortunately, this isn't further news about the Canadian Marriage Laws... although this is fricking stupid behavior, not by the student, but by the administration...



From CNN & Rueters news services...



Teen sues over 'lesbian Barbie' shirt ban



Friday, June 20, 2003 Posted: 10:13 AM EDT (1413 GMT)



NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A New York teenager alleged on Thursday that teachers violated her civil rights when they suspended her from school for wearing a "Barbie is a Lesbian" T-shirt.



Lawyers who filed a lawsuit on her behalf in Manhattan federal court said 14-year-old Natalie Young is openly lesbian and that a teacher laughed at her, calling the garment and its reference to the popular Barbie doll "inappropriate."



Young alleged that the principal held her for three hours in an office at the school in the borough of Queens on April 10, 2002 and refused to allow her to return to class while she wore the T-shirt.



A spokesman for the city education department, a defendant in the lawsuit, declined immediate comment.



Young was suspended for the day and the principal threatened to send her home again if she wore the T-shirt to school in future, the lawsuit alleged.



"Schools cannot legally engage in this type of selective, content-based suppression of speech," lawyer Dan Perez said. "If she had worn a 'Barbie Supports the Troops in the War in Iraq' T-shirt, she would have been called a patriot."



Perez said that on another school day before the T-shirt incident, teachers made Young remove rainbow colored beads from her hair, although she was not suspended then.



The lawsuit, which names the education department, school principal and several teachers as defendants, seeks a declaration from the court that Young's constitutional right to free speech was violated. It asks the department to issue guidelines on students' dress and on dealing with students' expression of their sexual orientation.



The lawsuit, which was filed in the name of the student's mother, Kathleen Hodges, because Young is a minor, also seeks unspecified monetary damages.



"That is not the most important issue here but if a jury decides to contribute to Natalie's college fund, all the better," Perez said.

(end of article)

skittles



How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall, till I can see so wide, river and trees and cattle and all over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green, down on the roof so brown--Up in the air I go flying again, up in the air and down! - The Swing - RLStevenson

[Gatito Grande]

New York City is the strangest place: you have The Village, where "gay rights" began . . . and then you have neighborhoods in Queens (like where this girl went to school) that are absolutely Neaderthal.



GG For a couple of years, I took the subway from school in Upper Manhattan, out to my job in Queens: what a long, strange trip it was! Out

[Darcy]

To answer Amymlc's question: Domestic partnership is NOT marriage, and can be set up by government entities smaller than a state, or even by an organization. Many companies offer domestic partner benefits, and since most jurisdictions don't have any official designation, the company gets to determine the criteria to qualify.



As far as I know, the only states which have domestic partnership laws are Vermont (civil unions), California (domestic partnership), and Hawaii (reciprocal beneficiary relationship). Corky (Triscuit7) and I obtained a Vermont civil union last year on our 18th anniversary, and have since registered with both California and Hawaii by mail, even though the likelihood of traveling to either - especially Hawaii - is pretty small. We're prepping our domestic partnership papers for Philadelphia, PA, which actually requires three proofs of the relationship which are at least six months old, in addition to the usual notarized form. We should be able to get to a notary together Tuesday.



Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey all have domestic partnership/marriage laws/court cases in progress. I'm hoping to attend the oral arguments in the NJ case next Friday in Trenton, but the final say will be at the Supreme Court, and not for several years, since there will be all kinds of appeals and arguments. Since the suit is based on the NJ state constitution, a decision by the NJ Supreme Court will not be appealable to the US Supreme Court. Of course, once the first state allows same-sex marriages, there will be lots of follow-up lawsuits arguing about whether other states and the federal government have to recognize them. Expect the same kind of lawsuits over same-sex Canadian marriages. I've heard that the US and Canada have a treaty by which they recognize each other's marriages; it's not clear what happens when their definitions suddenly differ!



Domestic partnership legislation for NJ is expected to be introduced in the next legislative session, and will include provisions for partnerships such as siblings, parent/child, and seniors (who often can't get married without losing access to benefits they need).



The state keeps complaining about not having any money, and I keep pointing out that all they need to do is raise the fee for marriage licenses and open a license bureau in Newark airport.



And - WOO HOO! - we were already planning to attend WorldCon in Toronto this year, so I've been busily checking out the process for Americans getting married in Canada. I'm hoping to schedule a civil ceremony for 8/29, which will be exactly one month after our 19th anniversary, and maybe route our return trip eastward so we can stay at the same B&B we had our civil union in as a honeymoon.

*****************
I don't care if it is an orgy of death, there's still such a thing as a napkin! - Willow in "Superstar"

[Gatito Grande]

Well, it's a Sunday in June once again: we're running out of June Mondays (when the Supreme Court issues their decisions), so there's a very good chance that the sodomy decision will come down tomorrow (or else, next Monday---that's the latest).



Check this spot tomorrow: if the decision has come down, I'll provide link(s) to find out what's being planned in response (hopefully, more partying! ).



GG 'Bout time we all can say "Hey, Uncle Sam: Stay the f*** out of my bedroom!" Out



ETA: Next week (June 30) for sure!

Edited by: Gatito Grande at: 6/23/03 5:08 pm

[Ben Varkentine]

www.nytimes.com/2003/06/2...2RICH.html



Article about how the author believes we as a culture have become more accepting of gays and homsexuality. Lord knows I'd like to believe that--and I think it is true as far as it goes--but that whole

Quote:

---

Americans are divided – a thin majority (51%) believes homosexuality should be accepted, while 42% disagree."

---

I mentioned earlier makes me wonder whether its time to put on the party hats just yet.



Onward and upward.

Ben



"Any frontal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always

ready to defend their most precious possession."

[skittles]

Here is the article that Ben is linking to: (NYTimes requires registration)



Gay Kiss: Business as Usual



LESS than two weeks after Bravo announced that American TV's first gay reality series, "Boy Meets Boy," would arrive on cable this summer, CBS jumped the gun, staging the first live gay network reality show in prime time. They called it "The Tony Awards."



Its host was Hugh Jackman, there to plug his Broadway musical debut next fall as the gay singer-songwriter Peter Allen. Its most exuberant winner was Harvey Fierstein, playing a Baltimore hausfrau in "Hairspray." Best play was "Take Me Out," a ballplayer's coming-out story, replete with full-frontal locker room nudity. Lest there be a gay drought during the commercial breaks, CBS tossed in promos for a new sitcom starring Nathan Lane as a gay Congressman. Even the featured song from the one kiddie musical of the theater season, "A Year With Frog and Toad," seemed to have an amphibious sexual orientation.



And then there was The Kiss. Barely a half-hour in, smack in the middle of what used to be known as TV's "family hour," Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the "Hairspray" songwriters, locked lips to celebrate their Tony and their 25-year partnership. "We're not allowed to get married in this world," Mr. Shaiman told the nation. "But I'd like to declare in front of all these people, I love you and I'd like to live with you the rest of my life."



Mr. Shaiman was wrong on the first point. Gay people can get married in this world, if not yet in Radio City Music Hall. Within 48 hours after he spoke, same-sex American couples started flocking to Canada, following an Ontario appeals court decision extending them full marital rights. The civil weddings are open to foreigners with no waiting period, Vegas-style. Whether Mr. Shaiman and Mr. Wittman headed north remains unknown, but after the Tonys they did turn up on "The View," where they discussed The Kiss.



"People are saying, whatever happened to heterosexual sex?" asked Barbara Walters as she and the other hosts on ABC's daily kaffeeklatsch celebrated the already oppressively self-celebratory pair.



Heterosexual sex is alive and well, but the day when homosexuality threatens most heterosexuals seems to be passing in America. In response to the Tony theatrics, CBS received only 10 phone calls of complaint and 68 e-mails (out of 8 million viewers). That's a smaller outcry than the furor that greeted CBS's undertaking of a Hitler miniseries, says Gil Schwartz, the network's spokesman. Bible Belt congressmen who took time out from the war on Iraq to noisily protest a potential "Beverly Hillbillies" reality show didn't raise a peep about the gay Tonys. Only Brent Bozell, of the right-wing Media Research Center, was sufficiently titillated by the spectacle to decry Broadway as "a sewer."



Given that the theater is, well, the theater, audiences may expect the Tonys to be over the top. But however skewed the Tony show is as a representative slice of pop culture, it is still consistent with a juggernaut that's been building in tandem with the modern gay civil-rights movement. It was 34 years ago this month that the movement took off, after the patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, fought back against a police raid. Since then, entertainment has often been in the vanguard of familiarizing America with gay people, much as it was in spreading homophobia for decades before that. Now the speed of both political and cultural change is accelerating, so much so that politicians who are hostile to or flummoxed by homosexuality, including some in the Bush administration, are on a collision course with history.



To see how quickly the cultural mood has changed, go back just six years. It was then that Ellen DeGeneres's elaborately staged coming out on the ABC sitcom "Ellen" merited weeks of TV coverage, the cover of Time, a disapproving statement from the Republican Party chairman (who knocked Ms. DeGeneres for undermining "a family kind of life" and congratulated his own party for seizing the "moral high ground") and a boycott of all Disney products and theme parks by the Southern Baptist Convention. This month Richard Chamberlain — "who made a career of wooing women for five decades," in the words of Dateline NBC — declared he was gay to widespread yawns. The Disney boycott, an utter flop, is not being duplicated by boycotts of AOL Time Warner (for HBO's "Six Feet Under") or Viacom (for Showtime's "Queer as Folk"). The fashion maven Steven Cojocaru flirts with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today" show — itself the site of an unscripted 1999 gay kiss by on-camera gawkers in Rockefeller Center.



As goes the culture, so goes much else. The day before the Tonys, an Episcopal diocese in New Hampshire elected that denomination's first openly gay Bishop. The Supreme Court is thought likely to strike down state laws that forbid homosexual sex in the coming weeks, possibly as soon as tomorrow. Last Sunday, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and potential presidential candidate Wesley Clark indicated to Tim Russert that he was receptive to the idea of homosexuals serving openly in the armed forces. The notion of gay marriage in all but name is spreading from Vermont to court cases advancing in Massachusetts and New Jersey. The marital revolution in Canada is likely to apply further pressures on both American judges and politicians to address the issue.



The right would have us believe that the homosexualizing of America is a conspiratorial "gay agenda" concocted by "special interest groups" and promoted by big bad Hollywood. After all, the Tonyish Oscar candidates this year included Ed Harris as a gay man with AIDS, Salma Hayek as the bisexual Frida Kahlo and, heaven help the nation, the musical comedy "Chicago" in almost every category. The "Will and Grace" generation of network programming has spawned such unexpected phenomena as the gay-friendly Eminem movie, "8 Mile," and a coming-out scene of sorts in a summer blockbuster, "X2: X-Men United," marketed to teenage boys.



But in the vast cultural marketplace, gay America is a relatively small audience — a niche, albeit an often affluent one — which is why it is most explicitly served in arenas like cable, less-than-megabudget movies and the theater, where gargantuan numbers are not required to turn a profit. It's meeting gay people in person, not on a television or movie screen, that has done the most to integrate straight and gay America. More gay Americans are out than ever before, and at a younger age — down from the early- to mid-20's on average in the 1970's to 16 for males and 17 for females now, according to a recent study cited by Newsweek. A Gallup poll last month showed that 60 percent of Americans think homosexual relations between consenting adults should be legal and 88 percent think gays should have equal rights at the workplace. More astounding, the Gallup numbers for the hot-button issues — gay marriage and gay adoption — are now dead-even pro and con.



No wonder anti-gay fulminations increasingly have few, if any, takers in the prime time of American mass media. The religious right's jeremiads on the subject were discredited by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's post-9/11 listing of gay people among those who in their view caused the terrorist attacks. During the current Gay Pride Month, even Bill O'Reilly could be heard on Fox instructing Reverend Falwell to stop picking on gays. After the Republican Senator Rick Santorum compared homosexuality with bestiality, among other vices, in an April newspaper interview, he became a stock comic figure on TV. "When I said gay sex was as bad as man-on-dog sex, I meant man-on-male-dog," said his "Saturday Night Live" impersonator. "Sex between a human male and a female dog I got no problem with."



All of this puts our current president in a jam. By keeping the gay baiters and bashers in his party under wraps at the 2000 convention, he may have received as much as a third of the gay vote, according to exit polls — a far cry from 1992, when his father presided over a convention marked by homophobic ranting. It's in keeping with the president's slogan of "compassionate conservatism" that he or any national candidate can no longer afford to be soiled by anti-gay zealots — not only if they are to harvest gay votes but if they are to avoid alienating the far larger number of heterosexual American voters who find the demonizing of homosexuality abhorrent.



No wonder the White House tried (unsuccessfully) to keep its distance from Mr. Santorum's embarrassment and remained mum when John Ashcroft's Justice Department moved to cancel its annual Gay Pride Month celebration. Mr. Bush has left in place a Clinton executive order protecting gays from being penalized in federal employment. Only six years after Republican senators, including Mr. Ashcroft, went ballistic over Bill Clinton's appointment of a gay man as ambassador to Luxembourg, Mr. Bush has appointed a gay man with a live-in partner as ambassador to Romania. And this week Marc Racicot, who has been repeatedly attacked by the religious right for meeting with gay groups, was selected as the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign chairman. Yet at the same time a Bush nominee to a federal judgeship, William H. Pryor Jr., is on record saying that when homosexual sex is legal, it leads to legalized prostitution, necrophilia, bestiality, incest and pedophilia.



This ideological switch-hitting doesn't fly anymore. Patrick Guerriero, the former Melrose, Mass., mayor who now runs the gay Log Cabin Republicans, said in an interview last week that the time is arriving when "the Bush administration is going to have to decide to go on record" embracing gays "as part of the American family and the Republican party." There are just too many gay news events on the court, political and cultural calendars for the president to hide in the closet, nonsensically trying to split the difference between "compassion" and homophobia. One of those events, Mr. Guerriero points out, is the 2004 convention in New York, where both of the leading Republican office holders, George Pataki and Michael Bloomberg, vocally support gay civil rights.



Besides, you can't hold a convention right off Broadway without acknowledging the culture just outside Madison Square Garden's door. If Harvey Fierstein is not invited to the party, there's always the risk that New York's previous Republican mayor, an even hammier drag artist, will step into the spotlight instead.

(end of article)

skittles



How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall, till I can see so wide, river and trees and cattle and all over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green, down on the roof so brown--Up in the air I go flying again, up in the air and down! - The Swing - RLStevenson