Gay marriage debate dead, poll suggests (Canada)

Gay marriage debate dead, poll suggests
Tue, June 20, 2006
By CP


OTTAWA -- A poll suggests a majority of Canadians accept gay marriage and oppose the idea of reopening the subject in the Commons as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised.

The survey, conducted by Environics Research on behalf of Canadians for Equal Marriage, said 62 per cent of respondents felt the same-sex marriage question is settled. Only 27 per cent wanted it reopened.

Harper has said the Commons will be asked to vote in the fall on whether same-sex marriage should be revisited. He said the free vote will fulfil a Conservative campaign promise.

The Environics poll also suggested only a bare majority of Conservative voters want the issue reopened.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/National/2006/06/20/1642388-sun.html


(Canada's neocons minority want to waste taxpayers' hard earned money for their unjust, stupid paranoia, against the will of the majority. What else is new?)

And he has to do something to placate them.

of better health care services (or else).

Shouldn't they just acknowledge they're on the 'losing side' and move on to real 'priorities'?

I think they should (but they're complete mora/ons).

awwwwwwwww

Quebec to separate (after their upcoming defeat on that vote)...

~snip~
The poll results suggested the highest support for same-sex marriage is found in Quebec, where two-thirds of respondents were in favour.

"This latest polling demonstrates overall opposition to equal marriage has declined since passage of the federal legislation," said Derek Leebosh of Environics.

"In addition, the strength of the opposition that remains has also fallen and this drop was even more pronounced among Conservative voters, where strong opponents have fallen from 46 per cent to 35 per cent."

Laurie Arron, national co-ordinator of Canadians for Equal Marriage, said the results show the majority of Canadians feel the matter is settled and want to move on."

He wants to grow his Quebec support (that is his only possibility of a majority) but he still has to placate the hard right. What to do?

I foresee a media blitz:
- To try to convince non-Conservatives to drop their support of same sex marriage.
or
- To try to convince hard core Conservatives that this doesn't really matter (or is a long term project).

I think we will see the latter, but you never know.

Its none of the Governemts business who one marries!!

OTOH, (I think) fiscal laws in Canada favor married couples over singles (they pay less income tax, I think), so in a way, they'd have to make everybody pay the same amount of taxes... and also, there are provisions for legacies that are unequal (married couples vs singles living together, and their respective families, relatives, and all: lotsa 'legal' stuff involved).

Ever since the 60's, when our Prime Minister Pierre Eliot Trudeau famously said, "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation".

Nor do we endlessly obsess over the sex lives of our leaders. Monica Lewinsky's name would never have been mentioned if she'd had an affair with our Prime Minister. Well, maybe, but he certainly wouldn't have been censured or publicly mocked.

The Supreme Court of Canada has already said that passing a law against gay marriage would be a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (our "Constitution" and "Bill of Rights").