I read Shawn's comments from Thursday, December 16, 2004. I disagree with him. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Once the definition of marriage is changed lawmakers will be very reluctant to change it back. But I do have this question; If we found every instance of the word marriage in Canadian law and changed it to another word, say "duck", would the gay community be satisfied if the definition of "duck" was to include the union of two persons to the exclusion of all others. If the answer to this question is "no" than I would suggest that this is not a rights issue.

What got me thinking about this is a comment made by a gay rights activist during the CBC radio program, Cross Country Checkup. The person (I did not catch his name) referred to gay marriage as a wedge issue. A wedge issue for what? To the best of my knowledge gays already enjoy the same rights and protections under the law as all other citizens. They partake in all the same benefits as other Canadians, including spousal benefits. And this is before gay marriage legislation has been enacted. What other injustices are they faced with? I'll leave the answer to your speculation as I have no answer for you.

Since I'm on the marriage rant here are some other questions/speculations for you:

1. Can two brothers or two sisters get married?
2. Can a father marry his son? Can a mother marry her daughter? If the answer is no then why not?
3. If a mother can marry her daughter is it discrimination to prevent her from marrying her son?

Yes, these are some of the icky questions Canadian lawmakers must consider if they are going to do a half-decent job on the new marriage bill. Hope you're not one of them.