Gay Marriage: The Story of a Canadian Social Revolution

John Stanley is a senior policy advisor in the Corporate Policy Branch
Management Board Secretariat, Government of Ontario. He is co-editor of
Nation and History: Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the
Second World War.

This book, a translation of Mariage gai, published in 2005, chronicles
the amazing judicial and legislative path to same-sex marriages. While
the author is clearly sympathetic to the case for gay marriage, he
conscientiously gives space to the opposing arguments while providing
background material on the topic from other eras and countries.

Sylvain Larocque has followed this issue for years as a Canadian Press
journalist. Consequently, he has mastered the chronology and details of
the debate and its ultimate, difficult steps to success. Although even
the gay and lesbian community continues to be divided on the
significance of marriage, once the debate focused on equality and
Charter rights, not only gays and lesbians but also most of the legal
community supported the issue.

Although the first attempt at gay marriage took place in 1971 in
Minnesota and the Netherlands first approved same-sex marriages in 2001,
Canada’s judicial and legislative acceptance of civil marriages for
gays and lesbians sent a powerful signal to other societies. Indeed, it
was cited in the judicial opinion permitting gays and lesbians to wed in
Massachusetts.

It is therefore a story worth telling. Larocque begins with the first
Canadian attempt at a gay marriage (Manitoba, 1974), and ends on the eve
of the Harper government’s free vote of 2006. Beginning with the
Charter of Rights’ enactment in 1982, a powerful argument began to
develop. Courts concluded that gays and lesbians had to be included in
the provisions for state-sanctioned marriage. As in any story, this book
has its heroes and its demons. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien comes out
looking good as he slowly shifted his views, while Senator Ann Cools’s
opinions condemn her as a homophobe. While marriage may once have
focused on procreation, judges and legislators came to recognize that
marriage today has a secular purpose: to provide a publicly supported
framework for mutual commitment attached to legal rights and
obligations.

Rights for gays and lesbians remain a controversial topic for many
Canadians. This work will serve as an important reference for all future
researchers on this topic.