If Don Cherry can say yes to two gay men or two lesbian women marrying each other then why the heck do we still have the likes of MP Art Hanger and Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying no. On December 17, 2004 I heard Don Cherry tell TSN he had no problem with "gay" marriage. Here's what I wrote then...
Hockey Icon, Don Cherry, Gives Thumbs up to Gay Marriage Controversial Canadian hockey commentator Don Cherry appearing on TSN tonight was asked about same-sex marriage. "Why should I care," he said, "Is it going to cost me money, no." Cherry is an Anglican and went onto say He didn't think they should be married in church, but going to a Justice of the Peace was okay.
We can speculate all we want as to why the Conservatives and Stephen Harper are trying to stop queers at the alter of equality. We can say he is simply trying to pacify some of his support base, or it divides the Liberals, or the NDP and BLOC are undemocratic because they will vote on party lines. It really is just one thing that should concern us.
The Conservatives are attempting to take away our rights. There is no other justification for what they are doing. You can not rationalize it by any means other than the Conservatives remains commiteed to being the party of choice for homophobes.
"That this house call on the government to introduce legislation to restore the traditional definition of marriage without affecting civil unions, and while respecting existing same sex marriages."
Those words come out of Parliament, the House of Commons, not just any Parliament but from ours here in Canada.
The action contemplated by our government would be a betrayal of trust with Canadians, it clearly says your rights to Equal Marriage are subject to continual threats.
“The grievance of those who support the traditional definition of marriage is the previous two governments have whipped their cabinet, which means the vote in the House has been something less than entirely free,” John McKay, Liberal MP told Lifesite News.
The real greivance of the social conservative religious movement is that they lost last time out. Now they are seeking to pressure Members of Parliament to undo the law. If they succeed here the Government's bill will require the use of the Charter of Rights "Notwithstanding Clause". It will not stand up to a court challenge as Appeal Courts across Canada have all ruled in favour of equal marriage. Over 12,000 people have been married since the Ontario court recognized that Canadian marriage law discriminated against same-sex couples.
Lets suppose that the Conservatives manage to change the law and invoke the "Notwithstanding Clause" this time or after an election when they have either a larger minority or majority government. What will stop the social conservatiuves from seeking change to other laws protecting gays, lesbians, bisexual and trans (GLBT) Canadians? Would adoption, immigration, education or housing and or employment protection be on the agenda.
These people, the Christian right and social conservatives, are not happy with the idea of same-sex couples having any rights equal to marriage let alone access to marriage. Many would forbid GLBT persons from teaching or child care, no involvement in youth sports or boy scouts or girl guides.
Some of you may think it wouldn't happen. It can happen. Once the "Notwithstanding Clause" is utilised, it will be easier to justify its use again. The Conservative government led by Stephen Harper may be saying thats it, no more changes after this one, but will they be able to enforce that. The pressure on the Conservative party within its own membership made up increasingly more with social conservitives and members of the religious right have an agenda of their own. return to the days when queers were harrassed and stuck in closets if they knew what was goof for them.
The Canadian public I hope will fight back against these kinds of measures and would likely rise up if the Conservatives use the "Notwithstanding Clause". The GLBT communities need to to ask, "Do you want to leave it to the generosity and good will of the Canadian public or take some control of the matter?"
As stated in an earlier post, its vital we understand that rights are only as good as the next election. We need to be sure the people that run in the next election support our rights. Anything less plays into the hands of the social conservatives. They are already rallying for the next election, to defeat Conservatives and Liberals, in nomination battles, that support GLBT rights, to run candidates that support repealing equal marriage and other rights held today by our communities.
For every candle lit, Bristol-Myers Squibb will donate $1 up to $100,000 to the National AIDS fund in the United States. Light the candle even if you are not from the United States. You can find more information and light a candle at www.LightToUnite.org/index.aspx?
Steven was the oldest of four and I the oldest of eight. His family was religious, mine went to church for weddings, funerals and once so I could get a badge for cub scouts. Steven entered Bible college at a young age and became a full fledged Pentecostal Minister at 17. At 17 I was in high school trying not to get beat up because someone might think I was a faggot. We were from radically different worlds.
After school I went onto work for the BC Forest Service, starting a career, coming out as a gay man and getting to Vancouver whenever I could. I became a union and gay rights activist. Steven took up a traveling revival show that landed in parking lots in communities all over BC and Alberta in the 70's preaching fire and brimstone. From there he was married, went to the deepest south of the USA to preach the gospel. Steven and his wife came back to Canada a little disillusioned with the Pentecostal movement and took up running grocery stores. They had three children and soon after the birth of the youngest they split up.
Steven was gay. He moved to Vancouver and made up for lost time and soon was diagnosed with AIDS. During this time I had two relationships with men, each lasting six or seven years, gone onto being an elected union and community leader in small town BC. I traveled to Vancouver often was excited to join in the gay scene there. Luck or fate seemed to protect me as I did much of what Steven had yet I did not contract HIV.
In the early years of Steven becoming HIV positive, he was all over the map emotionally. Told by his doctor he had two years at most. It was a tough time and as he lived beyond the Doctors expectations, Steven came to believe he had a life to live. He turned his anger and self pity into positive energy. Living each day in the present, not the past.
As this was happening with Steven, I was living life as an open gay man, enjoying my siblings and their children. I came to regret that I would never be a father. My nieces and nephews were that more special to me as a result, yet I had this need to have my own children. My partner at the time was not interested and I resigned myself to being an uncle. That said, being called Uncle Rick is pretty sweet.
Steven's and my life collided with a soft beautiful smile. I was in love the second I saw him. I had just moved to Kelowna and was looking to meet other gay men. I heard about a coffee shop that had a "gay friendly night". I wondered in and ordered a coffee and went about to meet people. Most seemed a little shy or stuck up. I was new and I guess they were sizing me up.
I went outside to have a smoke and then the smile that would shake my world was flashed. Steven I discovered was a major tease, though I did not figure that out until much later. He was the first person to speak to me, offering me a chair. I sat down and commenced what would take me six months of dating to get to where I asked him to be with me for the rest of my life. I choose a bed and breakfast in a small remote town, arranged for a bottle of champagne on ice in the room at 11that evening, for the fire to be started in the fireplace. We went out to enjoy a wonderful meal, a truly romantic evening and were back just after 11.
The fire was crackling, the champagne was waiting to be uncorked and I having spent an entire evening with the man I loved managed to keep my plans secret till now. I just about tossed my plan out the window at dinner. Steven’s smile, our conversation, holding hands, sharing our love, could there be a more wonderful feeling or time.
Steven knew something was up, it was not a regular thing for us to go off on a weekend trip, to treat ourselves so well, see Steven liked to do it but it was hard for him to let someone spoil him so, he went along mostly because I whined lots. His little sly grin when he said okay, Ricky needs this weekend. I directed him to a side chair, he sat down and I knelt before him and asked him if he would be my partner for life. It happened so quick. Steven surprised me with what he said next.
"I may only live another two, three years, I may be very sick for long periods of time, I can’t promise you any more Ricky." I can still hear his words. “Are you sure Ricky?” I said I was very sure. He said, “ Yes Ricky”. Shivers run up my arms now, across my back, tears appear and I wipe them away slowly as I recall this moment. We hugged and the tears came on. Steven told me that night he had just one wish before he died, "I want to love and be loved. I know it has happened.” I had almost forgotten the champagne, I opened it with all the flair of a movie star, poured it into our flutes, I leave the rest to your imagination.
Our life began together like it started, only this time there were two amazing smiles and some tears marrying our souls and bodies, overcome from our love. My new partner Steven was just 6 days younger than I. Something he never let me forget. One day in February shortly after I met him I asked Steven out for a picnic on Okanagan Lake.
He thought I was crazy but he came along. I packed all the stuff down to the snow covered beach, it was sunny and the picnic was warm pasta I made that morning. He laughed and told me I was nuts. But he was there, we laughed, ate, and shared a glass of wine. As were leaving he reminded me of his much younger age. He wasn’t laughing as he carried the bulk of the stuff back to my car with me claiming at my advanced age, we wouldn’t want to take any chances.
Our lives went on, normal as they can be with HIV. We were family. We talked about our past, and it seemed we were at many of the same places at the same time, yet we never met. Fate said Steven, we were meant to find each other. He believed we each had something the other needed in this life. I soon learned how true this was.
I became a Dad! Steven's youngest, Stephanie, came to live with us. We were overjoyed to have her. Stephanie added a new dimension to our love as we shared our lives with her. I now knew what being a Dad is like, being an integral, trusting and reliable part of a young person's developing precious life. Steven gave me one of my greatest desires, to be a father.
Steven's son Mark was a big part of our lives as well, visiting us often. When work took me to Mark's home town Steven's former wife Lynn, and daughter Sarah-Dawn did all they could to make me welcome. My Mom became Steven's Mom, my Dad and his wife Carol became parents, my nieces and nephews called Steven the “Weird Uncle” as he sang all the children's songs and played in the lake with them.
We watched the marriage debate and did our part writing letters, joining rallies, talking to people, in support of the right to marry. We should have the right to join in marriage. We lived as a couple, were recognized as such by family and community, only the government failed to see us as such.
Our life was normal, fulfilling and full of love and then came June 3, 2002.
I rushed Steven to hospital. He was suffering agonizing pain. We had been in to emergency three previous times in the last two months and the pain was becoming worse. That night a cancer specialist was on the AIDS Care team. She suspected cancer right away.
Steven was admitted, in the days ahead we heard Steven might live six months, he had cancer and it was very advanced, beyond treating. It was a cancer I soon learned was 100 times more common in HIV positive people. Six months to live, it was not to be. It became days.
Two days before Steven passed away, before he slipped into a coma, he pulled me close, and gave me that same smile he had when we met. He asked me if I remembered what his one wish was before he died. I nodded yes and he said, "Ricky, I know what it is to love and to know I am loved." Tears and smiles shook our souls and bodies.
Steven passed away in my arms on a sunny Vancouver morning at 8:30, June 9, 2002, in St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. I miss him. On July 12, 2002 the Ontario Divisional Court said couples like Steven and I had the right to marry.
Our growing family, two years after Steven passed away...
Sometimes it’s hard to express feelings when you are so close to something. A good friend Cody gave me a CD of a Josh Groban song, "To Where You Are". It says it for me. How can Stephen Harpersay we were not a family, that we were less than someone else’s family…
"...Fly me up to where you are Beyond the distant star I wish upon tonight To see you smile If only for awhile to know you're there A breath away's not far To where you are..." from - To Where You Are
That could be the US-Canada border, in my case Pearson International, a fifty dollar cab ride outside of Toronto. I was headed to see friends in North Carolina, the Tar Heel State. I always approach this part of a journey to the United States with some trepidation. One wrong check mark on your declaration, one misspoke word, do I look nervous.
I spoke very respectfully, attempting to smile, to let this man who at this moment held my liberty in his hands, know I knew he held such power. He looked at me briefly, typing into a computer screen all the information I gave him.
What would come up? My last visit to the USA? The last book I bought? Maybe they knew I was gay? They asked where I was staying, who I was meeting, what was the purpose of my visit?
I made a mistake, I had not checked one box. He handed my card back, instructed me to go back and check it and then get back in line. The line was long, I had been in it more than an hour now as we waited for Customs to open.
I walked back a few steps into no man's land, checked the box and stood waiting for some direction, determined not to re-enter the line at its end. I was soon pointed back to the man who had sent me away by a woman that was directing traffic. Finally a break I thought, at least I was being recognised in a somewhat more human manner. He looked at the card, stamped it and sent me on my way, without so much as a "Welcome to the USA" or good bye. I wasn't expecting it. No he didn't even look at me.
My experience was not uncommon, a new study recently said, "... 54 percent of travelers from abroad report that American immigration officials were rude, and two-thirds of travelers surveyed fear they'll be detained at the border because of a simple mistake or misstatement."
I am not sure why it is, why it has always been this way, most Americans like people in any other country I have visited are friendly, welcoming and generally happy to say hello to those visiting. I really was entering a new/time space continuum.
At the international AIDS Conference last August, the Harper Government first scheduled, and then at the last minute postponed, a major announcement on Canada's commitment to international and national AIDS programs.
Four months later we are still waiting. In the meantime thousands of people around the world have died from lack of treatment and thousands more have been infected. Join the AIDS Committee of Ottawa to Speak Out
Tell Harper it's Time to Deliver!
Join us at the Eternal Flame on Parliament Hill
On World AIDS Day, Friday December 1st at 10.30am
For more information, please contact the AIDS Committee of Ottawa at: (613) 238-5014
I for one never found them in my bed or any of my friends beds...
what's all the fuss ...
Here I am just outside Charlotte NC and I have no sense of anyone believing the Wal Mart is a friend of the gay boys that still hide in closets here. more on this later today!
Controversial Canadian hockey commentator Don Cherry appearing on TSN tonight was asked about same-sex marriage. "Why should I care," he said, "Is it going to cost me money, no." Cherry is an Anglican and went onto say He didn't think they should be married in church, but going to a Justice of the Peace was okay.
eers at the alter of equality. We can say he is simply trying to pacify some of his support base, or it divides the Liberals, or the NDP and BLOC are undemocratic because they will vote on party lines. It really is just one thing that should concern us.
