Editorial: Canada joins marriage movement - San Jose Mercury News

Posted on Mon, Jul. 25, 2005
Canada joins marriage movement
CALIFORNIA SENATE WORKING ON GAY-NUPTIALS LEGISLATION
San Jose Mercury News Editorial

Canada has become the fourth country in the world, after Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium, to officially recognize same-sex marriage.

It's a slow-moving trend, but a trend nonetheless. Like civil rights for people of color, same-sex marriage gradually will be accepted as the norm. Someday people will look back and wonder how discrimination against gay people ever could have been tolerated.

The battle over legalization in Canada often pitted proponents of equal rights against those defending religious beliefs. Sound familiar? In the United States, the struggle continues.

Only one state, Massachusetts, allows same-sex couples to marry. Vermont and Connecticut have approved same-sex civil unions.

In California, the Senate recently resurrected a same-sex marriage bill that had died last month in the Assembly. The bill's sponsor, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has gained the support of such diverse groups as the NAACP, the United Church of Christ, the United Farm Workers and the Los Angeles City Council.

Democrats predict Leno's bill, AB 849, will clear the Senate when it reconvenes next month and return to the Assembly in late August or early September. While passage is uncertain, just keeping the debate alive is progress. Arguments against equal rights don't hold up over time.

Canada's new law grants gay couples the same rights as unions between a man and a woman. Before its passage, those rights were progressively legalized in eight of Canada's 10 provinces and in two of its three territories.

This is the blueprint for U.S. proponents. When enough states have weighed in, discrimination in the remaining ones will become more glaring, and Congress will act. Leno's bill offers California a chance to be in the vanguard.