To my sisters and brothers down south

[jawnbc]

As saddened and angered Prop 8 made me last week, I am inspired by the responses in your country--queer and not. I'm heartened by the demonstrations being planned and other actions being taken.

And while I am Canadian now, I am American by birth and upbringing, having migrated to Canada about 20 years ago--before we had any queer rights statutes outside of Quebec and Ontario, or much support from major political parties for those rights. Really what has made the difference up here has been a Constitution written in 1982, not 1787. And even when we started getting these juridical entitlements--and most were by court precedent, rather than legislative action--it was difficult for me to process, having fought queerphobia in NYC in the 80s.

In 2003 I went to Australia for a post-doc--and met my partner. While we were there Canadian courts began ruling in favour of same-sex marriage. We flew back to Vancouver in October 2004 for our own wedding...only to find out the next morning that John Howard (a more perniciously clever analogue of GW Bush) had won a larger majority. When we had to choose which country to settle in, it was easy: one country that fully respected our entitlements as citizens (Canada), or one that only marginally did so (Australia). Bringing Max to the US was not an option; in fact we still go through US Immigration separately, less he get a homophobic agent and a lifetime exclusion for being a homo.

However, last week Australia began removing aspects of federal law that discriminate against same-sex partners, with subsequent legislation to remove the rest also on the government's legislative agenda. Only one Senator--the sole theocrat from Family First--voted against the law. Including the senators from the party that banned same-sex marriage. When we left Australia in 2005 we didn't it would change nearly that quickly.

I guess what I'm saying is don't give up--keep fighting. Keep your cool, build and maintain your relationships with allies, current or potential. The world is evolving and changing for the better.

Canada's not perfect by the way. We still have endemic anti-queer violence and too many public prosecutors unwilling to apply hate crimes legislation on the books. But without the baseline of civic entitlements--as persons and families--our opportunities for redress would be meagre.

Comments

[skeezix1000.livejournal.com]

Well said. Change is inevitable. It is also worth reminding ourselves, as Canadians, that the situation for the LGBT community is not perfect here either and that work remains to be done. I think we often delude ourselves into thinking the battle is won, so there is nothing left to do.

When did you come to Canada? Ontario added sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination to its Human Rights Code in 1986. It was almost a decade after Quebec, but that might have been in place when you settled here.

[jawnbc]

1989. I'll correct the entry!