“They are required to make a principled decision about whether a constitutional violation is demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society”. The judges noted that it took 60 years of fighting to achieve racial desegregation in the United States and that waiting for attitudes to change can be a glacial process.
As a family physician it is my experience when looking at the definition of spouse, there is no question that the relationships I saw in my practice actually worked until death did they part. These were indeed some of the most difficult relationships with the most serious illnesses.
The AIDS epidemic has taught us a great deal about what it means for an individual to have been abandoned by his family, then become a prominent artist, then be nursed to his death by his partner, or as the language has changed, his significant other, his long time companion, his partner, his spouse. Then at his deathbed the so-called family come and decide that all of the assets now belong to the family who once abandoned the young man.
In the families I looked after, there was knowledge of relationships between two women. A woman has left her abusive spouse and two women together have raised the child. The woman then dies of breast cancer. There is no question in that child's mind who is the parent.
I think it is imperative that we actually get with the program and understand that our old fashioned, prejudicial views of heterosexual relationships being the only valid ones are truly out of keeping with our society.
I think Canadians understand, when those two stories are told, what the just and right thing is for us to be doing. It may be that I was raised in a flower shop and I understood that the significant other of many of the members of my parents' staff happened to be of the same sex. However, it does not take that to actually understand that the kind of discrimination and the kind of fiddling with detail in terms of definition of spouse is just a very thin layer of homophobia.
I am very disappointed that we, in 1998, are still discussing this. How long ago was it that Mr. Trudeau told us the state had no business in the bedrooms of the nation? Why are we still fiddling with this definition of spouse? It is a value judgment. It is a value judgment that is actually wrong.
I think it is imperative as we move on that we actually start to redefine what it takes to make these units of our society. Our country will only be as strong as its individual units. Whether we redefine those units as families or as a social network, they are linked together to form what is the strength of our country.
It is very important that we look after one another and that we choose the people who will make decisions for us.
When I worked in the emergency department and asked somebody who their next of kin was, it was very rarely relevant whether they were married. It was the person they saw as being their spouse, their significant other, their long time companion.
We have seen so-called family members who fly in from across the country and upset everything that has been agreed upon in terms of a patient care plan. That is truly destructive to the fabric of our society.
I am more and more assured that sometimes parliament leads and sometimes the courts lead. When the courts show us where the gaps in the law are we have to follow that path. Minority rights will never ever show up in a poll. We have to ensure, as the stewards of this government, that we will not be led by a popular fear of some evangelical movement of homosexuality. That is just not the case.
People have told me that if it was not so easy to choose a homosexual lifestyle people would not choose it. I believe it is the most difficult choice that anyone ever has to make. I do not think anybody willingly chooses it. It is what they are. We have to respect that. We have to make sure that the relationships these people have are secure. When they die they should be entitled to their partner's pension. They should be entitled to the assets of the person whom they feel is their significant other, their lifetime companion, and they should be able to reap the benefits because they both contributed toward those benefits.