Living in a country that doesn't allow federally sanctioned same-sex marriage? Thinking of leaving the country in order to get married? Don't go to Canada.
Apparently, they haven't decided yet if you're going to be considered married if you are non-Canadian and your home country is one which doesn't allow same-sex marriages. At least, that's what it seems like after a lesbian couple went to Canada to get a divorce, only to be told that they couldn't do so...not because of the law that states that you must live in Canada for one year before being allowed a divorce, but because they come from a country that doesn't allow same-sex marriage and so therefore Canada doesn't recognize their marriage either...despite the fact that they were married in Canada.
This has worried and angered many around the world already since the news broke from the Canadian news site Globe & Mail. Somewhere around 5,000 couples who went to Canada to get married because they couldn't in their own countries are now worried that they aren't legally married after all.
The Prime Minister is a conservative and many wonder if perhaps this doesn't smack of backroom dealings or just simply a hidden agenda or policy issue leaning that was heretofore left unmentioned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Globe & Mail reports that, so far as the Harper government is concerned, same-sex marriage in Canada is not an issue and not in jeopardy. There are currently no plans to reopen the issue of same-sex marriage in Canada for Canadians. It's just the non-Canadian marriages, where the foreign couple hail from countries which do not allow same-sex marriage, that are in trouble.
From the looks of it, for all intents and purposes, anyone who took a trip to Canada to get married because they couldn't in their home country has reason to worry. Apparently, they are not legally married as far as Canada is concerned and therefore they wasted their money on the trip and the legal fees to get what they thought would be a legally recognized marriage at least somewhere in the world. But, if the country they got married in doesn't recognize their marriage, then they are not married anywhere. Not legally, anyway.
This is something that I'm sure devastates a lot of couples. And it really shouldn't be an issue. Why in the world would Canada do something like this? Even former Prime Minister Paul Martin has weighed in his disapproval of these shenanigans.
With the public backlash all over Canada and the world in general, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Harper government have been unprepared for all of the questions and outrage over this very huge problem, and backpedaling has already ensued.
Perhaps if we not only keep the pressure on but add more we will see a reversal in this nonsense. Because, that's what it is. Insulting nonsense. Let's hope that this doesn't go away for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and that his government will have to straighten up and act properly and honor the marriages, and the protections that come with marriage, for the people who were married there regardless of their country of origin or their mother country's own laws on same-sex marriage.
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