mommy-rambling

Good day yesterday. Busy, though. Didn't do much during the morning, but around lunchtime we got ambitious. Worked on the 4 Alls medieval diorama - the boys made knights out of plasticine - did some paper games, then went out.

I was really, really disturbed to read the other day that ( Toys'R'Us may leave the toy business )

On with my day. We're having people over for a BBQ tonight, so I guess I better start cleaning. Not that there's much to do - we've been out of the house a lot so it's stayed reasonably respectable.

To Have and To Hold Till the Court Do You Part

I've been thinking a lot about gay marriage north and south of the 49th parallel, after the court decision handed down in California yesterday.

It's funny how the two countries are so quickly drifting apart on this issue. California just annulled over 3000 marriages; states are lining up to put together constitutional amendments barring gay marriage; Bush is planning on doing the same on a federal level; 62% of the US population opposes gay marriage. Up here, the Yukon became the fourth jurisdiction to allow gay marriage (the other three are Ontario, BC, and Quebec); our gov is wishy-washily creeping towards a federal recognition of it, and 54% of our population supports it.

Why the difference? It puzzles me, because apart from eating poutine and having a higher chance of owning a snowblower, I really don't think we're all that different, culturally. And yet we may as well be on different planets on this issue.

I've also thought about how easy it is to get caught up in the cultural/intellectual/legal/moral debate about this issue. How we all tend to forget what's really at stake here: real people's lives and relationships. Their sense of belonging, to their community and to their country.

So I'm linking with permission to the lj of cassatt, whose marriage was annulled yesterday: the personal face of gay marriage.


And here's some news stories I came across today:

• Yukon decision on gay marriage hailed by activists
  
  
• Some provinces cool to Ottawa's gay marriage offer. BTW, the professor quoted, John Currie, was my Constitutional Law prof last year. I knew I loved that man :)
  
  
• Equal Marriage Website
  
  
• CIBC is banking on dignity and respect. Three things I found interesting in this article about the CIBC's first Pride reception: (1) one of the guests at this shindig was a politician who hopes to be the next leader of the Ontario Conservatives; (2) the first legally married gay couple in the world were CIBC employees (I didn't know this - I thought Holland already had gay marriages? Or were they civil unions?); and (3) Hey - we bank at CIBC!
  
  
• Nine provinces accepting of gay marriage - the lone holdout is Alberta, of course. I never wonder why Chris doesn't miss his home province all that much.
  
  
• Thirteen states may vote on gay marriage bans.
  
  Some quotes: Every measure to ban same-sex marriage put to a statewide vote has succeeded...
  
  Since the Massachusetts ruling, more than 35 states have introduced legislation aimed at preserving the traditional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
  
  Thirty-nine states already prohibit gay and lesbian couples from marrying with laws modeled after the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) [which]... bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages and allows states to ignore gay marriages performed elsewhere.
  
  ( 50-state roundup of current law and proposals to change state marriage laws )