Hardcormier finally updates his blog! Also, same-sex marriage!
Holy crap it's been a long time since I've posted! I just restored from my last saved draft and it said "Happy September everybody!" Yikes. I have no excuse except to say that I have been crazy busy. I've hopped onto my friend page a few times to see how you all were doing but have been feeling very uninspired when it comes to posting.
Wow. Well, long story short, things are good. I'm still working away at DND, agonizingly close to having a permanent position but not quite there yet. CelerySurprise continues to delight and Brainslie is starting to look forward to going back to school.
Now that we're somewhat updated, my main motivation for posting was to share some articles discussing this whole Canadian government stance on same-sex marriage.
Basically, the issue is that a lesbian couple who married in Ontario in 2005 are now seeking a divorce. Canadian divorce law states that anyone married in Canada who wants a divorce from a Canadian court needs to have been resident in Canada for the year prior to their application. Not sure why that's the case but it's apparently a long-standing rule. The couple in question went to court to challenge this requirement. The Justice lawyer on the other side included in his submissions to the court an argument to the effect that because the couple resided in jurisdictions (the UK and Florida) that did not permit same-sex marriage, their Canadian marriage was invalid from the get go. Word gets out and a firestorm of anger and shock is unleashed. The tenor of the comments is that the Conservative government was attacking same sex marriage through a backdoor policy change.
As long-time readers will know, I am no great fan of Stephen Harper and his government. However, in this case, it appears that they are blameless. I would invite interested readers to check out these two articles for more details but the gist is that it has always been the case that, for a marriage to be valid in Canada the parties must have had the capacity to marry in their home jurisdiction(s). The rationale being that Canada has no right to extend its marriage laws to other countries. In other words, you can't be married in Canada and not married in your own country. This has nothing to do with same-sex marriage per se. You would have just as much trouble coming to Canada to try and marry your sister. To be clear, this has no impact on the validity of same-sex marriages entered into between two Canadians or between two people from jurisdictions where same-sex marriages are legal.
If anyone is to blame, it is perhaps the people/cities/provinces who advertised Canada as a same-sex marriage destination without having looked into the actual legality of the matter.
It remains to be seen just what can be done to fix this. To their credit, the Justice Minister and the Prime Minister seem to be suggesting that they want to resolve this in a way that preserves what everyone thought the status quo was all along.
Wow. Well, long story short, things are good. I'm still working away at DND, agonizingly close to having a permanent position but not quite there yet. CelerySurprise continues to delight and Brainslie is starting to look forward to going back to school.
Now that we're somewhat updated, my main motivation for posting was to share some articles discussing this whole Canadian government stance on same-sex marriage.
Basically, the issue is that a lesbian couple who married in Ontario in 2005 are now seeking a divorce. Canadian divorce law states that anyone married in Canada who wants a divorce from a Canadian court needs to have been resident in Canada for the year prior to their application. Not sure why that's the case but it's apparently a long-standing rule. The couple in question went to court to challenge this requirement. The Justice lawyer on the other side included in his submissions to the court an argument to the effect that because the couple resided in jurisdictions (the UK and Florida) that did not permit same-sex marriage, their Canadian marriage was invalid from the get go. Word gets out and a firestorm of anger and shock is unleashed. The tenor of the comments is that the Conservative government was attacking same sex marriage through a backdoor policy change.
As long-time readers will know, I am no great fan of Stephen Harper and his government. However, in this case, it appears that they are blameless. I would invite interested readers to check out these two articles for more details but the gist is that it has always been the case that, for a marriage to be valid in Canada the parties must have had the capacity to marry in their home jurisdiction(s). The rationale being that Canada has no right to extend its marriage laws to other countries. In other words, you can't be married in Canada and not married in your own country. This has nothing to do with same-sex marriage per se. You would have just as much trouble coming to Canada to try and marry your sister. To be clear, this has no impact on the validity of same-sex marriages entered into between two Canadians or between two people from jurisdictions where same-sex marriages are legal.
If anyone is to blame, it is perhaps the people/cities/provinces who advertised Canada as a same-sex marriage destination without having looked into the actual legality of the matter.
It remains to be seen just what can be done to fix this. To their credit, the Justice Minister and the Prime Minister seem to be suggesting that they want to resolve this in a way that preserves what everyone thought the status quo was all along.