I’ve held off from commenting on the legislation now painfully making it through Parliment that would permit same-sex marriages across Canada. The static in the air that this issue has generated is deafening.
Ontario, as well as other provinces, has accepted these unions for some time and I was honored to attend the reception for a couple who took advantage of this province’s forward thinking. Having their status made legal has been a tremendous comfort to them. Imagine rushing to the hospital to see your life partner only to be told that you could not enter the ICU because you were not officially recognized as a “member of the immediate family”. In this enlightened day and age there’s absolutely no reason for such medieval thinking.
Whether the federal blessing is given or not, I can’t see any province going backwards – imagine the legal ramifications. We can only hope that our representatives in Ottawa use their hearts and minds instead of the puritanical views they grew up with.