CLIPPING: Doug Fisher on the gay marriage coup was achieved

July 10, 2005

The same-sex story
By DOUGLAS FISHER

OTTAWA -- Two questions disturb me in my midsummer lull.

First, how was the coup of legalized same-sex marriage achieved? Who shaped it, who co-ordinated it from a long-shot prospect a few years ago to a clinched deal last month?

Second, how might Canada’s "natural opposition party," the Conservatives, now led by Stephen Harper, respond to the fresh leadership contest shaping up within the federal Liberal party, now that we know of Michael Ignatieff’s bold determination to win a seat in the next election -- on his way to becoming Liberal leader and prime minister?

’Inside job’

Does the Ignatieff bid within the Liberals suggest an opportunity of comparable import for the Conservatives? Is there a conservative contestant who could compete in his league?

On the first issue, my theory is that to a remarkable degree, same-sex marriage was an "inside job" carried out within the federal Department of Justice, among the law clerks of Canada’s courts, and lawyers (largely women) in tune with the aims of gay organizations such as EGALE Canada. When the time came for crucial decisions supporting same-sex marriage, the senior courts were ready.

Indeed, by the time the House of Commons finally dealt with the matter, the issue was already a "fait accompli."

Unless a provincial legislature or the House of Commons was willing to to use the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution -- and none were -- it was the courts’ decisions that effectively became the law of the land (witness the flood of same-sex weddings, well before the new legislation passed in the Commons).

Long before even the court stage was reached, the single most important promoter of gay rights in Canada was Svend Robinson, the now-retired NDP MP from Burnaby.

The first elected federal politician to come out of the closet with a combination of social gall, bravery and stamina, Robinson rarely let a chance pass to advance the cause of homosexual rights. He was later joined by a gay member of the Bloc caucus, Real Menard.

It was apparent to me that this duo had the approval of most of the several hundred reporters, producers, and researchers who cover federal politics.

This media gang had become favourable to homosexual rights, just as they had become favourable to the end of capital punishment and a generally open abortion policy long before these matters were decided in the political arena.

This journalistic support showed up most particularly during the last election, especially in the hostility of reporters (again, largely women) towards Stephen Harper over his allegedly backward stance on same-sex marriage.

Pro-gay edge

Much of this pro-gay edge in the media was blazoned after 1989 by one newspaper, The Globe and Mail, and its editor-in-chief in the 1990s, William Thorsell.

Rarely a week went by that the Globe did not advocate for homosexual rights in features, editorials, and news stories, all making the vigorous case for fair play and full citizenship for this too-long-persecuted minority.

CBC-TV news and public affairs also shifted into this attitude, seeing the homosexual "status quo" as an undeserved injustice, with the French side (Radio-Canada) leading the way long years before their English cousins took up the cause.

I have no conspiracy theory of a single mind or team which executed the legislative coup of same sex-marriage. But I am sure when the history is written in the next decade or so, it will have, aside from the media and two prominent gay politicians, women lawyers at its core.

Now let us look briefly at a Tory alternative to put up against the brilliant and sophisticated Michael Ignatieff.

I suggest David Frum. Like Ignatieff, he is a star in the United States. Like Ignatieff, he is from one of Canada’s best-known families, his late mother Barbara a heroine to a generation of Canadians through CBC radio and TV in the 1970s and ’80s.

Frum is a formidable debater and every bit as much a global analyst as Ignatieff, and one who has spent even more time examining and advocating conservatively minded political programs for Canadians.

Could he be the Conservative answer to the Liberal challenge posed by Ignatieff?

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