Specially for Uncle Bob: "Gays claim first legal marriages"

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Bob, stay down there in California.....don't you know we're all left-wing freakazoids up here :-)

http://www.globeandmail.com/gam/TopNational/20010115/UWEDDN.html

Gays claim first legal marriages

Spouses Joe and Kevin, Elaine and Anne sent best wishes by Governor-General

MICHAEL VALPY RELIGION AND ETHICS REPORTER Monday, January 15, 2001

TORONTO -- As two homosexual couples were pronounced legally married yesterday before a cheering church congregation of more than 600 people, the Toronto pastor who performed the ceremony called it a historic act that will "open floodgates around the world."

While police scanned the congregation for troublemakers -- removing a woman from the church just as one of the couples signed their marriage licence -- Rev. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church said he'd had enough of needing security protection against disruption of his services of worship.

The marriage ceremony he performed, he said, was a message to politicians to catch up with public opinion and remove all obstacles to legal same-sex marriages, and a message to other churches, synagogues and temples to use the same law provision he used to marry homosexual couples.

If gay couples are not fully accepted in other faith communities, he said, "we will form our own."

Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson's office sent a message conveying her best wishes to the couples. "This is not a political position," Mr. Hawkes told the congregation. "We would not ask that of her."

Mr. Hawkes married the two couples under the authority of a section of Ontario's Marriage Act permitting any adult to obtain a licence and be married after "publication of banns" in front of the person's congregation of worship. Other provinces have similar provisions in their legislation.

Basically publication of banns means making three public announcements that the person plans to marry someone and making a request for anyone to declare whether there is a lawful reason why the marriage should not be allowed.

The only conditions, Mr. Hawkes said, are that neither partner can have been previously married and at least one partner must be a member of the congregation before whom the banns are published.

The word bann has a Germanic origin meaning "proclaim to be under penalty." The practice is thought to predate Christianity. Its purpose was to uncover whether there was any improper blood relationship between the intended spouses.

For the marriage banns of Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell and Elaine and Anne Vautour (Anne Vautour legally changed her last name to that of her spouse), there was no objection the first time the banns were read in the church.

On the second and third occasions, there were objections from conservative Christians. Mr. Hawkes said the objections did not cite legal reasons why the marriages should not be performed.

At the morning service yesterday before the weddings were performed, a woman jumped up from a front pew, announced she was a messenger from Jesus, and pushed Mr. Hawkes aside as she apparently tried to get to the pulpit. She was arrested and charged with assault.

The Bourassa-Varnell and Vautour marriages were the first homosexual wedding ceremonies performed in Canada -- and likely anywhere else in the world -- using banns.

Mr. Hawkes, on behalf of the couples, will now present copies of the licences to the Ontario government and ask that the marriages be registered, the final step in legalizing marriage in Canada. The province has said it will refuse to register them, citing conflict with federal law.

Howard Hampton, Ontario New Democratic Party Leader, told about 60 journalists present at the ceremony that there is no legal impediment in Ontario to registering the marriages.

Under the Constitution, the federal government defines what marriage is, and the provincial governments define the administrative procedures and obligations surrounding marriage. It seems certain that the courts will have to determine what the federal definition is.

The federal Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Act deals only with which relatives cannot marry each other.

In almost all other legislation -- both federal and Ontario -- the partners to a marriage are called "persons," not "man and woman" or "husband and wife."

But the preamble to the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act -- passed by the federal government last June to extend to same-sex couples the same benefits under social programs as heterosexual couples -- reads:

"For greater certainty, the amendments made by this act do not affect the meaning of the word 'marriage,' that is, the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."

Douglas Elliott, lawyer for the Metropolitan Community Church, said yesterday: "The act can't say it does not affect the meaning of the word 'marriage' and then go ahead and define marriage."

An Ontario court in the past has ruled that the common law -- non-statutary -- definition of marriage meant union between a man and a woman.

But Mr. Elliott said the common law must be seen as evolving, not something frozen in time. The courts today, he said, would have to interpret the common law in the context of equality protections contained in both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law.

Mr. Elliott said Mr. Bourassa, Mr. Varnell and Elaine and Anne Vautour will be legally married regardless whether the Ontario government registers their marriages. It is just legally more convenient, he said, if there is registration.

If the province refuses to register, he said the church will seek what is known as a writ of mandamus from the courts, an order compelling the Ontario government to "do its duty" and register the marriages. Nationwide, 17 same-sex couples have initiated legal proceedings to compel their provincial governments to issue marriage licences.

For the ceremony, Mr. Bourassa, 42, and Mr. Varnell, 31, wore dark suits. Mr. Bourassa is a bank manager and Mr. Varnell works for a corporate Web site. Elaine and Anne Vautour wore white shirts and dark pants. Elaine Vautour, 43, is a counsellor at a city homeless shelter. Anne Vautour, 38, is a childcare worker at the provincial legislature.

Both couples said the hardest part of getting married has been the public scrutiny of their private lives.

Wedding guests were asked to make donations to the church's legal defence fund in lieu of gifts.

END ARTICLE Johnny says: If 2 guys want to enter an institution that seems to have been designed to allow 2 people to argue about patio furniture, then it's no skin off my nose.

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), January 15, 2001

Answers

''AS IN THE DAY'S OF NOAH"" THANK GOD IT'S ALMOST OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), January 16, 2001.

Johnny Canuck

Does this mean that all men in Canada tell a woman "I love your bathing suit", and really mean her bathing suit?

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), January 16, 2001.


Legal gay marriages began in the Netherlands three years ago.

First Legal Gay Marriage Performed in Netherlands

http://www.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html?record=2640

-- Till death (do@us.part), January 16, 2001.


--Till Death,

Ah yes, but when will the United States or even one state of these united 50 become enlightened enough to see that these folks are just like the rest of us, and as such, entitled to the same rights? Or am I asking to much? Probably.

-- Aunt Bee (aunt__bee@dellmail.com), January 16, 2001.


Vermont Senate gives nod to gay civil unions

-- (_@pril.2000), January 16, 2001.


Uncle Bob: at this time of year that question is moot! :-)

Do you know the lyrics to the Lumberjack Song (by Monty Pyton): (maybe this gay marriage thing is hidden deep, deep in our wild past...)

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day.

Chorus: He's a lumberjack and he's okay, He sleeps all night and he works all day.

I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavatory. On Wednesdays I go shopping And have buttered scones for tea.

Mounties: He cuts down trees, he eats his lunch, He goes to the lavatory. On Wednesdays he goes shopping And has buttered scones for tea.

Chorus: He's a lumberjack and he's okay, He sleeps all night and he works all day.

I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers. I put on women's clothing, And hang around in bars.

Mounties: He cuts down trees, he skips and jumps, He likes to press wild flowers. He puts on women's clothing, And hangs around in bars.

Chorus: He's a lumberjack and he's okay, He sleeps all night and he works all day.

I cut down trees, I wear high heels, Suspendies and a bra. I wish I'd been a girlie, Just like my dear pappa.

Mounties: He cuts down trees, he wears high heels? Suspendies...and a bra? ...he's a lumberjack and he's okay,

He sleeps all night and he works all day. ...he's a lumberjack and he's OKAAAAAAAAAAYYY. He sleeps all night and he works all day.

Aunt Bee: >>Or am I asking to much? << In 30 years our kids will look back at this time and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Regards

JC

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), January 16, 2001.


I guess I've been on the farm to damned long, and I need to come into town more often and see whats goin on. If two women get married or two men get married, chokes me up just to thing about it, who in the hell wears the pants in that family, who gets up on top, and who in the hell does the cookin? If they're both usin Kotex at the same time, don't ya have to haul the garbage out twice as fast? And it would be damn embarrasing for two adult grown women to go to an emergency room to get help gettin unstuck from one of them doubl-enders. And the biggy, how in the hell does a guy get all excited over a hairy ass?

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), January 16, 2001.

You spend an awful lot of time thinking about gay people don't you Boswell?

-- Wondering about Boswell (wondering@boswell.gay?), January 16, 2001.

Boswell

Do you and your buddies still play Hide the Potato up there in Idaho? Just curious...

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), January 16, 2001.


Gays will now get to experience the "marriage tax".

-- Lars (lars@yahoo.com), January 16, 2001.


Boswell, what's "one of them doubl-enders" ??

-- helen (b@r.f), January 16, 2001.

I'm sure glad you asked these questions and I'd be tickled to death to answer them for ya. Any time a thread about gays or lesbians starts you all seem to find it appropriate and fitting to give a comment or add your own two bits worth whether it be for or against. It seems most of you take a liberal stance and view it as acceptable. And that is fine because it is the good ole USA. A few of you, and I should say very few, show a more conservative unapproving politically incorrect view. And I am more so than most! But that doesn't mean that I want to seek out and yearn to jump in there and voice my personal opinion on this issue everytime it arises. In fact you have several fine individuals that post more often than I do on this subject only they are on the other side and it certainly doesn't mean they are obsessed with the topic. And Bob, as far as Idahoan's playin 'hiding the potato", hell we've been doin that for years! Most of our settlers out here come from Missouri around 1898 and one the cures that come out here for havin the runnin shits was to take a small spud bout the size of a radish and push it up the ole pooper.It would keep it plugged for about 5 days untill everything calmed down and it took about that long for the damn thing to rot because you sure as hell couldn't dig it out. And that one about them double-enders. Out here in our country we grow big big cucumbers with them big warts all over them. I mean BIG! I heard the story because I wasn't around then but back in 32 there was a couple of them gals that thought the world of each other. They got the idea of usin one of them big ones TOGETHER. Well they got stuck when they did one of them lip locks and they had to go to the hospital and get unstuck. It only made one paper but most of us heard about it. Kind of took the joy out of eating pickles!

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), January 16, 2001.

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