A SERIOUS question about gay marriage for Canadians, Belgians, Dutch, Spaniards, etc.

Great Debates
1

Another OP on this board asked: What, specifically, would be the negative consequences of allowing gays to marry?

Now, I assume that this meant “in the United States.”

Then the debate turned into a train wreck concerning some kind of crypto-lesbian marriage that apparently occurs among the Ooga-Boogas or whatever in Africa.
[ See Mod/edit note. ]

Might I suggest that one reasonable way to examine such a question in the US is to look at the experience of other societies similar to the United States?

There are now six countries in the world that have simply made marriage available to same-sex-couples. Sorry I could not get you all into the title, but they are Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, South Africa and, since January, Norway. I am not counting countries like Germany, France and Britain that have forms of civil union that are somewhat (and often less) equal.

All of these countries are pretty similar to the United States in many ways (except maybe South Africa). They are western capitalist democracies that are racially, ethnically, socially, culturally and in every other way very like the United States. Indeed, Canada is about as close as you can get to the US without actually being an American.

So how about some input from people in those countries?

I can speak for Canada. The debate three years ago was bitter, with conservatives, the Roman Catholic Church and Fundamentalist Protestants trotting out the same arguments you are now hearing in America. One RC Member of Parliament was actually refused communion by his p[riest for having supported SSM.

Actually, Canada has had gay marriage for at least 6 or 7 years now, since the vote in Parliament just confirmed a series of court decisions in the different provinces.

So what effect has six years of legal gay marriage had? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a word about it in the papers. Not a peep out of any politician. Heterosexual marriage (and divorce) continue just as they did before. Gays get married (and sometimes divorced).

What is it about conservatives? Are they just born pessimists?

Would love to hear from people in the other 5 gay marriage countries.

2

Dutch here: we’ve had same-sex marriage for just over 8 years, and a “registered partnership” for both hetero and same-sex couples since 1998. Most of the Christian parties were against it, but it hasn’t really been as big an issue as it seems it is in the US. For example, the largest Christian party over here voted against it, but their own voters were about 45% decided each way.

Since then, the only real discussion has been whether public servants could refuse to marry gay couples based on their (religious) convictions (currently, this is gedoogd and the coalition-agreement is to keep it that way). Other than that, the Netherlands is just as socalist, godless and hedonistic as it was before. And hetero couples still get married :slight_smile:

ETA: and nobody is confused as to what the word “married” means, either.

3

The main effect I notice here in Toronto is that it somewhat boosts our lagging tourist industry, being able to trumpet Toronto as a “gay friendly” destination. Other than that, it has dropped from the public’s notice as an issue, as far as I can see.

4

There’s no need to exclude the US states that have it too. It’s been 5 years now in Massachusetts, and the sky has yet to fall. Negative consequences are nowhere to be seen. Most neighboring states have seen that for themselves and either have or soon will have it too.

5

Well, when I went shopping the other day, I had to dodge the biblical torrents of fire in addition to the usual potholes, but I’ve gotten used to it.

6

Superfluous Parentheses is right about everything, but left out one legal phenomenon.

When civil unions became possible, to give everybody the same legal possibilities, the law made it possible to change an existing marriage fairly easy to a civil union and vice versa. A few thousand couples who wanted to divorce anyway with as little as possible legal hassle, used this possibility to change their marriage to a civil union, and then to have it disbanded, which is a lot easier to do with a civil union then with a marriage.

The phenomenon was known as “flitsscheiding” or “blitz divorce.”

7

I forgot to mention an interesting fact. Spain and Belgium are (or at least have been historically and culturally) very strongly Roman Catholic countries. The Netherlands has a strong RC presence, even if it is a minority.

Canada is about 30-40% RC, but interestingly enough, support** for **ssm ran to about 80% in (nominally) Roman Catholic Quebec. Almost all the RC bitching against ssm came from the RC upper clergy and a fringe of conservative Catholics.

RC laypersons and liberal Protestants were the backbone of the pro-ssm majority in Canada.

I don’t know enough about South Africa to judge.

Norway, who became the sixth ssm country in January, is nominally almost all Lutheran, but this is because almost everyone is default-listed as a Lutheran at birth. In fact, atheism is the majority opinion in Norway.

8

In one of the discussions here, someone has proposed the following as a negative consequence of gay marriage (in the US I presume):

In Canada, I don’t know of ANYONE, EVER who has felt that their heterosexual marriage is now “less special” than it was before.

However, perhaps I don’t travel in those circles. Perhaps right now there is someone in Moose Jaw who is saddened by the fact that their marriage is less unique and special than it was 5 years ago. But I don’t think so. And if there is, my advice to them would be to get over it. I would then ask them if their marriage is less special because of the many quicky weddings conducted by Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas.

9

Gay marriage, women’s voting rights, inter-racial marriage, you’ve got quite the array of questions out there right now. When’s your paper due?

10

LOL! Good one!:stuck_out_tongue: Actually, I am semi-retired, 61 years old, I work part-time (but not today) and I have no papers due. I am Canadian, gay, have been with the same man 33 years (more than a life sentence :p) and we have been married for 3 years.

I have publicly offered in a couple of newspapers to apologize and make reparations to any hetro couple who can demonstrate that my marriage somehow harmed theirs. So far, not a nibble. :smiley:

11

Fair enough. Usually when I see a shotgunning of related topics I just assume “homework.” At least yours have stimulated some actual debate and discussion.

Sorry for the hijack, wish I could help with the debate.

12

HA! This is very funny. If you ever do get a response, you MUST share it with us.

13

Just to be on the safe side, what I have specified is that I get to pick a third party to define what constitutes harm to a hetrosexual marriage or family, and I get to decide what is appropriate compensation.

I am not going to be forced to pay out millions because Ricky Redneck in Alberta found his teen-aged son using a calf in the barn for a blow job and decided that since he gave his boy a good Christian upbringin’, it must be them there queers what put ideas like that in his head.:stuck_out_tongue:

14

Damn it!

::calls the travel agent to cancel that cruise he just booked::

15

Hope your son’s surgery to re-attach his winky went OK.

16

Dude, that’s just the Big Dig.

17

As a white South African my cultural influences are a little closer to Western Europe than the average, but my impression of the country as a whole is that while the average is very socially conservative, most people just have more important things to worry about. There was some resistance to the Constitutional Court decision, but it certainly wasn’t very forceful and the issue seems mostly forgotten, aside from people who are directly affected.

18

I don’t recall the debate being all that bitter - well, maybe it was, but it was subdued by that time because it had been played out. By 2006 the debate was largely seen as pointless. The debate *had *been bitter in the years leading up to that point, but by that time the ship had sailed. It was a fait accompli in the courts and the bill introduced at that time to reopen the issue was a transparent sham, as the Conservative government planned all along for the reopen-the-debate fail so that gay marriage would remain legal and the issue could be put aside forever; any other approach would have cost them. So it was a debate over a bill no party in Parliament wanted passed and that nobody thought would pass, one of the more pointless bills ever put to a vote in the House of Commons.

Now, perhaps the vitriol from the pulpit was nasty (when isn’t it?) but like most Canadians, I don’t go to church on a regular basis, so the hell with what the priests said. When they deal with their altar-boy-buggering problem I’ll start listening to their opinions on sex-related matters.

As to the central question, of course it has had no negative impact, as anyone could have predicted.

But I had an advantage in predicting this, as I was in the Army when the prohibition agaisnt homosexuals serving in the Armed Forces was lifted (in 1992 or 1993, I think.) There was much doom and gloom talk about that, too. You know what happened? Absolutely nothing. Quelle surprise.

BTW, congratulations on your marriage, I don’t recall that coming up on the boards.

19

Congratulations, that’s very cool. :slight_smile:

I’m not sure if a Kiwi is allowed to play, you’re the OP, you choose.

We have had from 2004 Civil Unions (and Common Law marriages) that are (in all ways bar one) the same as Marriage. They provide equal coverage for immigration, next-of-kin status, social welfare, matrimonial property, etc… but not adoption.

(That one exception is something this IT geek feels must be described as a data integrity fault. As I understand it, the Adoption Act 1955 references the Marriage Act 1854 and needs to be updated to include the Civil Unions Act 2004. This fault affects all couples in a civil union whether same-sex or opposite-sex, and will hopefully be resolved).

Big discussions and arguments before the Act was passed…
Negative effects of passing the bill on the fabric of NZ society? Nada.
Positive effects: making some people very happy that they could solemnize / formalize their arrangements with the other people they love and provide security and stability for their families.

(And the first people I knew to take advantage of the law were a long-engaged hetero-couple who for their own personal reasons wished to eschew the more traditional “marriage”).

20

In 2006, it wasn’t even a bill - it was just a non-binding resolution, which if passed by the Commons would have called on the government to introduce a bill to repeal same-sex marriage. The resolution didn’t pass the Commons.