First of all, Canada was first. The marriage in 2001 predated the Dutch ceremonies, and when marriage was declared legal in ON, the licence was predated to 2001 when they should have legalised it.

Your facts about provinces first and nation later is correct, but your spin is not. We are a constitutional monarchical democracy not a parliamentary one. Our constitution is written not oral, like parliamentary monarchical democracies like the Mother Country.

Besides, you have marriage in MA and no one else can marry homosexually in that state if they are not residents, or in the case of RI, they can marry in MA because although they cannot marry in their own state, they have no DOMA. (Exhausted typing). Civil union canards are trumping marriage and I can just imagine you typing that Benelux countries, Canada, and former apartheid South Africa can give civil marriage.

You googled some correct information about the initial Belgian and Dutch marriage laws. They forbad adoption and surrogacy. Ditto Belgium. Yet they both have been given that right in the past year. With marriage, it was easy to argue for the whole package. Some lesbian friends of ours have two surrogate children.

CANada also allows all foreigners to marry regardless of nationality….problems in Europe and Africa.

We are speaking about the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance that boasts freedom and justice for all. Canadians grow up in the shadow of our super power neighbour and learn quickly that we have a firmer grasp on those values which some can only verbalise.

At the end of the day, I am in my home, with my married and legal spouse, and our legal children. We have all the benefits of opposite sex couples in my country…sine die.

Due process is exactly what the Republicans promised the blacks in the nineteenth century, and I guess that 102 years is incremental due process.

The Netherlands FIRST had registered partnerships (1998), which eventually paved the way and allowed civil marriages (2001).

Canada FIRST had same-sex marriages in several provinces. The dispute of allowing couples to retain their rights from one province to the next caused the nation as a whole to trump the dispute and legally gay marriage as a whole.

Spain underwent a similar process. Since the 1990s, several areas allowed “civil unions.” It took until 2005 for that to be recognized nationally.

South Africa FIRST granted civil unions (1999) to same-sex partners before the Supreme Court eventually ruled in favor of same-sex marriage (thank you lesbians!) in 2004. It took another 2 years before same-sex marriage was legalized.

You see Rev., there is no “NOW”… and there is no waiting “several more generations”. It’s called “due process” and it’s working. It’s slow, and sometimes it sucks – but it IS working. I agree, I want everything NOW too, but it’s not going to happen that way.

The Austrians are just another EU nation with the Tony Bliar (the DLC of UK) compromise on rights without the equality of name under law. Try asking those hets married or marrying if they want to have a second tier document and call themselves “unionised” rather than married, eh?

I agree about Schwarzenegger. He is giving payback to all those who said that the onetime bodybuilder was gay. “I’m not gay, ask Maria and the women I have allegedly harassed” and no, for the second t
ime after being elected twice, no to marriage for gays. I am not gay.

Witness Sweden and other Scandanavian nations. They all adopted this canard years ago. Now decades later, they are having huge difficulties in changing the document to a marriage licence.

You either accept instant gratification ( cruel when you need some rights NOW and they know it) or you spend several more generations waiting for full equality.