Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Today marks five years of equality for gays and lesbians in Ontario

I'd be remiss not to mention today's five year anniversary of equal marriage in Ontario, when the last legal form of discrimination against gays and lesbians was struck down.

Five years ago today, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that same sex couples had the right to marry and the court made that right immediate. Later that afternoon, the first legal same sex marriage in Canada took place between Torontonians Michael Leshner and Mike Stark.

Since then, it's estimated that 15,000 gay and lesbian couples have wed throughout Canada.

Thanks to lawyer Martha McCarthy, who was lead counsel in the historic case, for reminding me of this milestone with this great column in today's Globe & Mail. It's definitely worth a read.

8 comments:

Marcus McCann said...

An interesting anniversary. Five years of full legal equality, indeed. Unless you go to a bathhouse, want to have more than one partner, like rough sex, import gay erotica, want to be the presumed parent on a birth certificate, need SRS or want to learn about gay sex in sex ed. But otherwise...

Matt Guerin said...

I think you have a point when it comes to importing gay erotica and gay sex ed, but the rest I'm not sure are issues of legal equality. We have long had bathhouses, no one can have more than one partner (so we're all equal), rough sex? laws apply equally to all, the rights of children always come first regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents, Ontario just re-listed SRS.

Matt said...

It's surprising how many people think that the marriage battle was the final hurdle for equality though. My students are always surprised to discover how many subtle provisions still exist in the criminal code against gay sex. The most glaring is that the age of consent for anal sex (18) is still higher than that for other forms - even after the Conservatives set about raising the age of consent to 16. It's also a criminal offense to have a threesome involving anal penetration. The marriage victory was a huge win, but there are certainly additional battles to be fought.

Marcus McCann said...

And I grant that a bunch of this is federal, not provincial. To take one: we've long had bathhouses, yes. But from time to time the staff are harassed and patrons charged as "found ins" of a bawdy house. Most recently: the Pussy Palace raid (Toronto, 2000), Goliath's Sauna (Calgary, 2002) and The Warehouse (Hamilton, 2004). The bawdy house laws are orientation-neutral on paper, but since there aren't _straight_ bathhouses, it's not equal in practice. Yes, Ontario plans to relist SRS, but depending on how the surgery gets covered, it's possible that almost no one will qualify for it. The point is, it's fine to celebrate "formal legal equality" in Ontario, as long as we recognize we still have a ways to go. Queer people shouldn't be packing up the picket lines at Queen's Park or Parliament just yet.

Matt Guerin said...

I think that bawdy house laws have changed for all as a result of a recent court ruling, making such police action less frequent. The events you described happened before this ruling. Although for the most part, even before this ruling, the police left most gay bathhouses alone despite the fact they were illegal in many ways. That was indeed a "special right" enjoyed by gays in our society over and above existing laws that didn't apply equally for heterosexuals for, as you correctly say, there aren't many if any straight bathhouses.

Yes there are issues that some gays wants more action on for sure. But in terms of legal equality under the law, we've got it.

macboi said...

I don't want to be negative, but we don't have legal equality. I teach in a catholic high school, and if I married my partner or if the school board found out we lived together I could be fired. The catholic schools have an article in our constitution that exempts them from the charter and human rights legislation. Also, every employee must sign a "catholicity clause" in their contract which says if they violate any of the values of the catholic faith they can be dismissed, which the Ontario Human Rights Commission has determined to be legal.

Matt Guerin said...

Thanks for the comment, macboi. Actually, the Ont Human Rights Commission recently ruled on a case involving a lesbian who was fired by Christian Horizons simply because of her orientation. She signed a similar pledge when getting hired (before she came out as a lesbian) and that's why they fired her. The Commission ruled Christian Horizons was wrong for firing her and for even forcing employees to sign such pledges. That case is instructive for other religious employers across the province. I wrote about the case here: http://queer-liberal.blogspot.com/2008/04/fired-lesbian-employee-wins-human.html

I don't that Catholic boards are exempt from the Human Rights Act in Ontario, nor the Charter of Rights. The clause you're referring to in the constitution simply protects the existence of said Catholic schools from being challenged under the law. The constitution must be amended before anyone tries to shut down Catholic schools in Ontario. That same clause also gives Catholic schools special rights to exist whereas other denominations have no legal basis to force similar funding from the gov't. Thus Jewish schools can't sue for public funding based on the gov't already funding Catholic schools.

As for Catholic schools firing gay teachers or discriminating gay students, we have the precedent of Marc Hall, a gay student who won an injunction forcing his Catholic board to let him bring a same sex date to his prom. I also think if a Catholic board tried to fire a gay teacher simply for being gay, they'd lose in court and in any Human Rights Commission they went before. Catholic boards are not exempt from the Charter, the Human Rights Act or other laws.

macboi said...

Thank you for your reply. I do, however, reluctantly disagree. The big difference between the Christian Horizons case and Ontario Catholic Schools is that they enjoy constitutional protection. The special privileges, which is very broadly interpreted by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, allow the separate schools to discriminate for hiring purposes and to demand the aforementioned "catholicity clause" of their employees.

For further information on this appalling abuse of queer rights, I suggest reading Tonya Callaghan's book "That's So Gay - Homophobia in Canadian Catholic Schools". I will definitely contact once again the OHRC, but sadly I don't think the Christian Horizons case will be a valid precedent.

But...ever hopeful!