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Originally Posted by The Third Man
Perhaps you should rethink your argument.
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Its not an argument, it's Constitutional Law 101. The basic premise of a Bill of Rights is that a majority will always be able, through the power of the crowd or the ballot, to protect its interest. The Bill of Rights exists to garantee all citizens equal rights and protection, whether they are african-americans, native americans, visible minorities, women, jews and even gays.
In 1982, Canada adopted a constitutional Charter of Rights which was closely modeled on the U.S. Bill of Rights. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, you had a series of court challenges against the existing marriage laws as being discriminatory against gays under the charter of rights. They all succeeded. In 2005, the federal Parliament conceded and modified all laws including the marriage laws so it would apply equally to heterosexual and same-sex couples.
Unless the US Supreme Court takes an extremely narrow interpretation or the US Constitution is amended, you should eventually have the exact same result in the USA.
When the Conservative government was elected here in 2006, they toyed with the idea of adopting a law that would give same-sex couples the same rights and obligations, but call it a "civil union" instead of "marriage". They finally dropped the idea since it made no sense to revive the debate for a purely cosmetic change.
Conservatives up here realize that the real battleground is not social, but economic, i.e: lower taxes, less/smarter governement regulations, more favourable business climate, etc.
I live in Montreal which has a reputation as an ultra-liberal city. I live a mainstream life, live in the suburbs, commute to work. We don't know any gay couple or gay family, none live in our neighborhood or have children in our son's school, as far as I can tell. In the past 5 years, I have only met 2 gay couples, both time because I had to review their wills. If it was'nt for the news media covering events in the gay neighborhoods or the odd time I see a gay couple holding hands downtown, I would not even know Montreal has a large gay community.
Legalization of same-sex marriages has had zero impact on canadian society.
Trying to tell responsible adults how they should live their personal lives is a losing and a loser issue.