would the american religious right please stay out of our country?

The CBC reports that Canadian MP's are getting inundated with phone calls, emails and faxes from people that not only aren't their direct constituents but aren't even Canadian citizens. These helpful neighbours are pointing out to our elected leaders that they'll burn in hell if they vote in favour of the tabled law legalizing same-sex marriage which, incidentally, accords with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms (so says the Supreme Court). My favorite quote from the article:

"The United States, including the American government, I think is quite concerned at the drift that this country has taken in what I view as the wrong direction, and what millions of Canadians view as the wrong direction," said Liberal MP Pat O'Brien.

Yeah, I guess it's not enough that a majority of U.S. citizens decided to elect a certifiable moron with openly neo-colonial international policies, an act which directly affects the rest of us un-enfranchised global citizens more than the election of any other world leader. If our inability to change that outcome wasn't bad enough, some (not all, I grant you) of these people want to impose their homophobic domestic policies on their international neighbours. Would somebody please explain to these zealots that there's a reason why they live in the U.S. and we live in Canada: we choose not to be like you.

The whole idea that there's a "debate" surrounding this legislation is nothing more than a pitch by cultish religious groups to solicit more donations and raise their public profile. Here's a news flash: the Supreme Court has ruled that our Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects minorities from all forms of discrimination, in particular prohibits withholding the right to marry from homosexual people. End of story.

If this legislation somehow doesn't pass, which would be an incredible black mark on this parliament's record, all it will take is a homosexual couple to file an action in any jurisdiction in Canada challenging the constitutionality of the current legislation which excludes them from marrying and we'll be back to tabling the legislation again.

How long will it take for these people to figure out that we've got a constitution that prohibits members of the majority from discriminating against a minority? It doesn't matter if 99.9% of Canadians are against same-sex marriage. As a society, we decided that we weren't going to allow the other .1% to be deprived of their rights because we know that somebody, something, has to protect those basic things we believe, deep down in our Canadian souls, that 100% of our people must have.

The "something" that protects 100% of Canadian people is the Charter. Frankly, I'm damn proud of it, and no amount of phone calls, emails or faxes from American religious-righters will take that away from us.