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By Rex Wockner International Report
The National Assembly of the Canadian province of
Quebec voted unanimously June 7 to grant gay and
straight couples who enter an official civil union all
the rights and obligations of marriage -- including
access to adoption and artificial insemination.
That places Quebec just behind The Netherlands, where gay couples, including foreign residents, are allowed to marry under the regular marriage laws instead of civil-union or domestic-partnership laws set up for homosexuals. Several European nations grant registered gay couples 99 percent of the rights and obligations of marriage but are still haggling over such matters as adoption, insemination and church weddings. "This is the first of its kind in the world," Irene Demczuk of the Quebec Coalition for the Recognition of Same-Sex Couples told Toronto's Globe and Mail. "There is no other jurisdiction in the world where equality was offered unanimously to same-sex couples and their children. "The bill answers all our prayers," she added in a press statement. "It is a historic event in that it goes even further than similar legislation in Vermont, and elsewhere in Canada. Quebec will be the only place in North America to give same-sex couples the same rights, privileges and obligations as married couples. The international recognition that comes with marriage is the only missing element."
"The only reason why Quebec couldn't go as far as The Netherlands is simply because the definition of marriage under the Canadian constitution is federal and the federal law defines it as between a man and a woman," said André Gagnon, publisher of the Montreal gay newspaper Être. "Quebec's Civil Code has been amended by Bill 84 to withdraw any reference to sex of the spouses. So Quebec's law is just waiting for the federal law to change to allow same-sex marriage. Civil union has been created to pressure the change in the federal law [since] it's basically the same thing as marriage." |
