Having partially surmounted the hurdle of achieving workplace and personal equality, lesbian and gay people now face the seemingly impossible task of gaining the right to marry their partners.
“You have these gays and lesbians fighting for marriage, fighting for a family, [but] they could probably teach [heterosexuals] a thing or two about commitment,” said Joanne Cohen, a U of T alumna and legal and queer studies scholar.
Cohen joined Doug Elliot to talk about legalizing lesbian and gay equality at a January 23 forum sponsored by the U of T group Out in Law. The two are counsel for eight same-sex couples seeking the freedom to choose civil marriage in Ontario. Cohen explained that while countries such as Holland have legalized homosexual marriage, the Canadian government has remained adamantly opposed, putting forward very strange arguments against gay marriage.
In January of 2001, two couples, one gay and one lesbian, were wed at the Metropolitan Toronto Community Church by Reverend Brent Hawkes. Because it is illegal for two people of the same sex to marry, Reverend Hawkes used the banns procedure, which manages to avoid legal repercussions while addressing the spiritual and religious beliefs of the wedding couples. After a generally supportive public reaction (though there were some protestors), homosexual couples throughout the country demanded that they, too, have the right to wed.
Of the obstacles faced by their clients, Cohen and Elliot had particularly harsh criticisms for the arguments against gay marriage put forward by the government in court. Besides random psychological studies conducted many years ago, Elliot said one of the opposing arguments was that if same-sex marriage was legalized, “all women would become lesbians or asexual.” He added another governmental defense statement was that “men would be reduced to a tablespoon of semen.”
The struggle experienced by the eight couples is not confined to Ontario. One case in Quebec and another in British Columbia are currently underway, or in the process of being started. The definition of marriage established in 1867 is being challenged across the country and around the world.
