Just think of the possibilities.

Further to yesterday’s blog post:

I notice in a news story this morning that the government is refusing to recognize foreign civil partnerships. Well, not really. They are actually refusing to grant a divorce to a same-sex couple – one partner is a Canadian citizen – who have never been married in Canada or anywhere. They have a same-sex civil partnership registered in the UK, but the Canadian government is suggesting that this is not the equivalent of a marriage in Canada.

Caution!!!

If this argument sounds even vaguely plausible to you, you need to do something about your latent homophobic tendency. This is how it all begins.

Come to think of it, if marriage is a basic human right, surely divorce must be too. So, why should someone be denied a divorce just because they’re not married? I mean, what of those poor people who have been denied the right to marry just because they found no one who was willing to marry them? Are they to be condemned, through no fault of their own, to a life of divorcelessness as well as singleness? And what of the unmarried person who longs to be a widow or a widower? I’m sure there are more married folks in that category than we might like to think. Why should one have to be married to be eligible for the benefits of widowdom: pensions, EI survivor benefits, the right to remarry or not remarry (even in the Catholic church)?

Eventually, of course, as the old song warns us, people will start becoming their own grandfathers. But just what exactly is wrong with that? Isn’t having a grandfather a basic human right? And, if so, surely being a grandfather, regardless of gender I might add, is a basic human right too. And why, in a free and democratic society, should I be denied the right become my own grandfather? Who else knows or loves me better than I do?

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I think we see a pattern here. This government is using the law to resist the Enlightenment, and to delay the full flowering of human dignity.

Why is our government dragging its feet?