You were excited to find out that Canada had legal gay marriage. You made special plans: extravagant ceremonies and considerable money spent on transportation, hotel rooms, ballrooms, and fees for a marriage license. You went to a lot of trouble to travel to Canada to make that dream come true.
Now you're told by the Harper government that your marriage isn't valid unless you live in Canada or it's legal where you live.
The premise argued by the Harper government in a divorce hearing in Canada is that couples married in Canada must live in the country for at least 1 year before getting a divorce, and gay/lesbian marriages are legal in Canada if they are also legal where the couple resides.
While this applies to anyone who came to Canada to get married, Americans make up the vast majority of those involved from outside the border. And most of them, for obvious reasons, don't live in a state where gay marriage is legal. Canada is a nice place, and all, but these couples went there because it was legal in Canada and not where they live.
Consider that more than ⅓ of the approximately 15,000 same-sex marriages in Canada since becoming legal in 2004 have involved people from outside Canada.
Canada has benefited from increased tourism and enlightened perception. "Sure, it's cold up north but they have universal health care and gay marriage." For many, it's now 1-for-2.
If one person in the couple is Canadian, is it still legal? If you move from Illinois to Iowa, does your marriage suddenly become legal? Or if it was illegal at the time when you got married, and you went back to Canada, and promised to only live where it's legal, then it would count?
When asked about this, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, "I will be asking officials to provide me with more details on this particular case."
For now, the policy argued is only a legal opinion, an interpretation of established law. But even if Prime Minister Harper decides that his government won't abide by this legal opinion, the damage is done on the perception of Canada.
These people came to Canada in a trusting fashion to enter into a contract. If Harper wants to make gay marriage illegal, and he certainly has leaned in that direction (though he has said publicly that Conservatives "have no intention of further re-opening or opening this issue"), then any marriages prior to that point would be legal. Basic Law 101: can't penalize people for something they entered into in good faith.
Many U.S. jurisdictions don't recognize gay marriage, even if entered into somewhere else. If that Illinois couple marries in Iowa, and goes back to Illinois, the Land of Lincoln won't recognize that marriage (though Illinois now has civil unions). But companies that they work for often will recognize such marriages for purposes of employee benefits.
Non-recognition of a marriage in another jurisdiction is something people know about up front. All those people who got married in Canada knew their marriage wouldn't be officially recognized where they live. When U.S. President Barack Obama's parents got married, they knew their marriage wouldn't be officially recognized in Virginia.
The Obama marriage was still officially sanctioned where they got married, even if not in Virginia, and was legal and binding regardless of where the couple lived. The legal opinion offered on behalf of the Harper government is that the marriages are only legally binding as long as the domicile in question recognizes the marriage. By that logic, the Obamas wouldn't be married in Hawaii if they lived in Virginia.
What about those couples who want to get married and were looking forward to getting married in Canada? Lost revenue from tourists seems the last thing Canada needs right now.
We would like to take Prime Minister Harper at his word, and this was a slip somewhere along the way. The likelihood that the prosecutor decided on his own to come up with this off-the-books interpretation isn't realistic. We want Harper's word on this not for us, but for those couples that legally did get married in Canada, for those who want to travel to Canada to get married in the future, and for those who host those couples and give them the love and respect they deserve that they don't always get where they live.
Yesterday afternoon, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the Harper government will consider changing the law to allow for divorce for non-residents married in Canada. If that did happen, if, that would solve the dilemma in the case that brought this legal opinion. However, even if the "if" becomes a "when," the Harper government needs to be clear that these marriages are good, and will stay good. That should have been the first thing the justice minister should have said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, you will need to do much more than apologize for this action. You need to reassure the world citizens that a deal in Canada is still a deal. Tourism dollars are only one part of the equation; integrity of law and contract should be enough of a reason to bend over backwards to show that Canada welcomes all those who want to get married, regardless of where they live.
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