Wanted: a free vote on gay marriage

“Dion goes on the attack,” blared the headline atop the Globe and Mail’s front page Tuesday. “Stéphane Dion charged into the same-sex marriage debate in his parliamentary debut as Opposition Leader yesterday,” the story began, in a bid to “turn the tables on Stephen Harper’s gambit to swiftly end his honeymoon by splitting the Liberal caucus on the matter. Mr. Dion accused the Tories of undermining Charter rights in the pursuit of a hard conservative agenda.”

You get the picture: devious Prime Minister tries to split opposition caucus. Plucky Opposition Leader counterpunches with “far-right” accusation. The Toronto Star struck a similar note, accusing Mr. Harper of resurrecting “a divisive debate that Canadians across the political spectrum hoped had been settled for good.” It’s divisive, but it’s settled. Check.

Strangely, over at Lifesite.net (“Your Life, Family and Culture Outpost”), they saw things a little differently. “Prime Minister Harper Goes on the Offensive on Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ Free Vote,” the social conservative website headlined. As their report had it, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper directed an open challenge to new opposition leader Stephane Dion yesterday, questioning if Dion would refuse to allow his cabinet a free vote on re-opening the marriage debate...”

Speaking as a long-time supporter of gay marriage -- I was for gay marriage before gays were -- I’d say the Lifesite version of events was closer to the mark. Parliament is entitled to debate any matter it pleases; on “divisive” issues it is more or less obliged to. (The Star’s “spectrum” would presumably exclude the 38% of Canadians who told a Strategic Counsel poll this week they want the law permitting gay marriage scrapped in favour of the traditional definition.)

There is nothing wrong with members of parliament voting on gay marriage, and nothing amiss if one party or another is thereby revealed to be “divided” on it. We’ve got to get over this idea that any time MPs exercise their brain cells unchaperoned it is some sort of constitutional crisis. It would be unnatural if they weren’t divided, given the real divisions that exist in the country, and nothing is served by pretending the contrary.

I don’t doubt that both parties, Conservatives and Liberals, are playing politics with the issue. But the causality could as easily be in the other direction. That is, the Liberals hoped to use gay marriage as evidence of the Tories’ supposed “far right” agenda, a message the new Liberal leader began hammering home the minute he was elected. By challenging Mr. Dion to release his MPs to vote their consciences, Mr. Harper was in fact “turning the tables” on him, as the sight of so many Liberal MPs voting against gay marriage would rather take the partisan sting out of the debate. If the Tories are “far-right,” so it seems is a good section of the Liberal party.

So the real question is: Why would Mr. Dion not allow his members to vote freely? Why, except to falsely polarize the House on party lines, when the real divisions are ideological? Mr. Dion says it is a matter of the Charter of Rights, and I agree. But the Supreme Court, whose views on that score count rather more than either of ours, has yet to decide the issue -- in fact, it pointedly refused to do so when asked -- and while it is highly likely the Court would rule any attempt to restore the traditional definition of marriage was a violation of the Charter, until they do so no one can say with certainty. Parliament should not vote, in my view, to take away gays’ right to marry. But I cannot say it does not have the right to do so.

Is there, however, any point in such a vote? Yes. It’s true that Parliament voted only last year to legalize gay marriage, but there has been an election in the interval. Moreover, we have yet to hold a truly free vote on the matter: last year’s was whipped, at least with regard to cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries. And while it looks like the traditional marriage side faces certain defeat, until they hold the vote nobody knows.

Putting the matter to a truly free vote would send an important signal: that the 40% or so of my fellow Canadians who do not feel the same way as I and my liberal friends do about gay marriage are not pariahs or bigots, but on the whole are decent people with legitimate concerns that are entitled to be represented in Parliament.

Rewriting the marriage laws to include homosexual unions is a radical social experiment, one that only a handful of countries have been willing to embark upon until now. It is a step we should take, in my view, not simply because we are required to by the Charter, but as a positive gesture of respect for gays and lesbians, a sign of their acceptance by mainstream society. But we owe as much respect to people of goodwill who worry where it will all lead. We owe them a free vote.