Supreme Court Hearings

Equal Marriage Rights for all Canadians - Supreme Court Hearings

The Canadian Unitarian Council has long championed human rights and has advocated repeatedly for equal marriage rights and against "separate but equal" civil unions. All Unitarian*Universalist clergy and lay chaplains serving in Canada today have declared publicly that they are prepared to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. Indeed some U*U clergy and lay chaplains performed the first same-sex unions as long as thirty years ago. Many began to perform same-sex marriages as soon as recent changes in provincial and territorial legislation allowed them to do so.

Canadian Unitarian couples were part of most the court cases which have brought equal marriage rights to six Canadian jurisdictions. February 11th was the 30th anniversary of Winnipeg Unitarian minister Rev. Norm Naylor's reading of banns and attempt to register the marriage of Richard North and Chris Vogel, who were the first gay couple to be legally wed in Manitoba following the recent court decision there.

In 2003, Mary Bennett and Rev. Fred Cappuccino made a presentation to the Standing committee on Justice and Human Rights regarding same-sex marriage. The next logical step for the CUC Board was to follow the advice of the Council's Equal Marriage Working Group of the Gender and Sexual Diversity Monitoring Group and apply to the Supreme Court for intervener status at the hearings concerning the federal government's proposed equal marriage legislation. However, the CUC Board had not budgeted for this and could not justify the expense considering our deficit budget position. The cooperation, hard work and support of a few individuals made it possible for the CUC to argue the equal marriage rights of Gays and Lesbians before the Court.

All members of the Equal Marriage Working Group especially its Chair, Rev. J. McRee (Mac) Elrod deserve our thanks. Mac contributed an enormous amount of his time to this effort and without his generous financial support, and the pro bono work of our Counsel Robert J. Hughes and Kenneth W. Smith, the CUC could not have been one of 26 interveners who participated in the Supreme Court hearings last week.

A brief summary of the week's events follows. On October 5, Canadians for Equal Marriage (CEM) and Egale Canada organized a Press Conference in the media room of the Parliament Buildings' Centre Block. Representatives of six of the 17 interveners, who were advocates for same-sex marriage rights, were invited to speak. (Groups opposed to the legislation had met the press earlier.)

Alex Munter, Co-Chair of CEM opened the session followed by Laurie Aaron, Director of Advocacy for Egale. Mr. Aaron said "We've got the support of the federal government, 18 judges in a row, and groups like the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Bar Association, Canadian Civil Liberties Association and many supportive religious groups. This is the first time at the Supreme Court that the federal government is arguing in favour of gay and lesbian equality." I was pleased to speak on behalf of the CUC. Other participants were Anne Squire, former Moderator of the United Church of Canada (UCC); Cynthia Petersen, lawyer for Egale Canada and 5 B.C. couples including Unitarians Dawn and Elizabeth Barbeau; and Kenneth Cheung, National Chairperson of the Chinese Canadian National Council.

The conference was televised live on Newsworld. My remarks are on the CUC website www.cuc.ca together with the Factum prepared by our lawyers and submitted to the Court prior to the hearings. Mr. Robert Hughes based his argument before the Court on the information in the Factum.

Lawyers for the 17 interveners who support same-sex marriage were heard on the first day of the hearings. Peter W. Hogg, Q.C. representing the Attorney General of Canada, spoke first. He stated that the Government's proposed legislation would rewrite the definition of marriage and that Canada would be following the precedent set by Belgium and The Netherlands who support same-sex marriage. Lawyers for the 16 other pro same-sex marriage interveners argued that marriage should be defined as "between two persons"; civil marriages should be available to everyone, excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage is discrimination; churches should not be forced to marry same-sex couples against their beliefs - the Charter of Rights and Freedom protects clergy in such cases. Arguments from the nine interveners opposed to equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians were heard on the second day of the hearings.

Although we must wait for the Supreme Court's decision and the Government's reaction to it, CEM invited all interveners and their lawyers to join them in a celebration of an important milestone. "Tone Clusters" Ottawa's Gay and Lesbian Choir, some of whose members are U*Us, began the evening by singing "I'm getting married in the morning". Alex Munter and Gilles Marchildon, Executive Director of Egale Canada and a member of the UU Fellowship of Ottawa, were co-chairs. They pointed out that there is still lots of work to do, thanked everyone who had being working on the equal marriage issue for years (CEM, Egale members etc.) thanked all interveners and introduced them and their lawyers. Jack Layton, Heddy Fry and two MPs from British Columbia were also present.

One message that I heard repeatedly from proponents for same-sex marriage last week was how much the support of religious groups was appreciated. Following the press conference, Anne Squire and I were told "Thank you for standing up here beside us". Interventions by the CUC, United Church of Canada, Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto and Canadian Coalition of Liberal Rabbis offset news reports which seemed to indicate that all religious groups opposed equal marriage rights. The four religious groups in favour of same-sex marriage supported the religious freedom of their respective clergy to perform weddings for their gay members and friends. It is important that we as Unitarians*Universalists were on record concerning this civil rights issue.

Elizabeth Bowen

Past President

Canadian Unitarian Council

October 11, 2004