{"id":52301,"date":"2015-06-29T07:30:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T11:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=52301"},"modified":"2015-06-28T21:48:01","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T01:48:01","slug":"lorinc-torontos-connection-u-s-supreme-courts-sex-marriage-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/06\/29\/lorinc-torontos-connection-u-s-supreme-courts-sex-marriage-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Toronto’s connection to U.S. Supreme Court’s same sex marriage ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"feature-lorinc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a strange but compellingly human irony in that fact that last week\u2019s momentous same-sex marriage ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a> can be traced back to a relationship between two Ontario women who had lived together for almost a decade in a relationship that subsequently fell apart.<\/p>\n

Their private acrimony triggered a court battle that set the legal stage for the City of Toronto\u2019s move to start issuing marriage licenses in 2003 to same sex couples \u2014 among them, Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer<\/a>, a long-time lesbian couple from New York who toppled the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, the key precursor to this latest, and hopefully last, decision to guarantee same sex rights in all fifty states.<\/p>\n

\u201cM and H,\u201d as those two women are referred to in court documents<\/a>, met in the early 1980s, started a relationship, moved in together in a house H had owned since 1974, and established a small advertising firm. The business started to go sour, money became an issue, and M eventually walked out. She sued, demanding that the house be sold, and the proceeds divided.<\/p>\n

At the time, courts and politicians were grappling with the question of same-sex benefits \u2013 i.e., do\u00a0employee health plans or other benefits apply to same-sex couples in the same way\u00a0they do with straight partners? But in the case of the break-up of M and H, the issue came to focus on the ragged end of a relationship, not its day-to-day finances. If straight couples, either formally married or in common-law relationships, have to divide up their assets when love dies, does it not follow that the same rules should also apply to same-sex couples?<\/p>\n

On May 20, 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld an Ontario court ruling, which had struck down a crucial definition in the province\u2019s Family Law Act. Section 29 of that law defined married or common law relationships as being between a \u201cman and a woman.\u201d That specific\u00a0language, the Supremes ruled, \u201cis declared of no force and effect.”<\/p>\n

The decision\u00a0forced the Ontario government, under then premier Mike Harris, to pass a bill updating a raft of laws in order to edit out discrimination against same-sex couples. But as The Globe and Mail<\/em>\u2019s James Rusk reported in May, 2000, \u201cone of the lawyers in the M v H case believes the new law is also discriminatory because it refers to same-sex couples as partners, while heterosexual couples are called spouses. It also refers to same-sex couples and their dependants as households, while heterosexual couples and their dependants are termed families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enter Ontario crown attorney Michael Leshner and Michael Stark, his partner of almost twenty years. Leshner had been pushing the legal envelope on gay\u00a0rights for several years, and now seized on the apparent gap in the new Ontario law as an opportunity to go even\u00a0further. \u201cThe Michaels,\u201d as the couple are known, applied for a marriage license from the City of Toronto. City lawyers, in turn, announced they\u2019d go to court, asking for a ruling on whether they can, in fact, take that step. “We are simple public servants who want to do what is the responsible and prudent thing to do,” Paul Jones, director of Toronto\u2019s legal services, said in a press conference at the time.<\/p>\n

In early 2001, meanwhile, Rev. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church presided over two same-sex marriages \u2014 to Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell, and Elaine Vautour and Anne Vautour \u2014 which were then \u201csolemnized\u201d by the publication of a banns of marriage<\/a>. Formal marriage licenses, however, had to then be issued by the City Clerk, and the Ontario Registrar had turned down the municipality’s\u00a0request to be allowed to process the paperwork.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for two couples appealed to the Ontario Divisional Court, and in July 2002, won\u00a0a landmark decision<\/a>. \u201cThere is no statutory impediment to the issuance of marriage licences to same-sex couples,\u201d wrote Justice Harry LaForme in striking down the\u00a0federal law defining marriage. The common law definition, as a union between a man and a woman, he continued, is \u201cinconsistent with constitutional values in modern Canadian society, and offends the equality rights of gays and lesbians under s. 15(1)<\/a> of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms<\/a>.\u201d As media reports noted at the time, only the Netherlands to date had legally sanctioned same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

Conservative politicians and organizations in Ontario and Alberta publicly questioned the decision. What\u2019s more, when the Michaels went to City Hall to exchange vows later that month, city clerk Uli Watkiss turned them down, informing the men that she didn\u2019t yet have the legal authority because the Ontario court\u00a0had given the Ottawa two years to update its laws.<\/p>\n

The federal Liberals, in turn, signaled their ambivalence over same sex marriage by announcing the government would appeal the Ontario lower court ruling. As The Globe<\/em>\u2019s Jeff Sallot reported, the caucus was split, with prime minister Jean Chretien calling for \u201ca national debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

On June 10, 2003, however, the Ontario Supreme Court<\/a> settled the matter decisively, rejecting Ottawa\u2019s appeal and ordering the federal government to re-write its laws within 13 months. The Michaels promptly \u2014 and legally \u2014 exchanged vows at Toronto City Hall, and news of their marriage quickly spread through U.S. media outlets.<\/p>\n

As Leshner told The Washington Post<\/em> a few days later, “Today is Day One for millions of gays and lesbians in Canada and around the world. This is a wonderful, wonderful human rights story and a wonderful love story . . . This judgment puts a stake in the heart of homophobia.”<\/p>\n

With hundreds of Canadian same-sex couples flocking to City Hall to exchange vows, the Post<\/em>\u00a0went on to note that many Americans were heading up to Toronto\u00a0to get married as well, thus skirting legal and political obstacles raised\u00a0every state but Vermont, which recognized \u201ccivil unions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2007, Windsor and Spayer \u2014 who, by then, was dying of multiple sclerosis \u2014 flew with a few friends to Toronto to exchange vows at City Hall. After Spayer passed away two years later, U.S.\u00a0officials\u00a0hit Windsor with a bill for $363,000 in estate taxes: she wasn\u2019t deemed eligible to inherit her partner\u2019s assets because\u00a0they weren\u2019t recognized as legally married in the U.S. thanks to the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act.<\/p>\n

Windsor, whose remarkable life is detailed here<\/a>, sued for equal treatment. The rest is history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a strange but compellingly human irony in that fact that last week\u2019s momentous same-sex marriage ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court can be traced back to a relationship between two Ontario women who had lived together for almost a decade in a relationship that subsequently fell apart. Their private acrimony triggered a court battleContinue reading “LORINC: Toronto’s connection to U.S. Supreme Court’s same sex marriage ruling”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":52313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Toronto's connection to U.S. Supreme Court's same sex marriage ruling - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/06\/29\/lorinc-torontos-connection-u-s-supreme-courts-sex-marriage-ruling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Toronto's connection to U.S. Supreme Court's same sex marriage ruling - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s a strange but compellingly human irony in that fact that last week\u2019s momentous same-sex marriage ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court can be traced back to a relationship between two Ontario women who had lived together for almost a decade in a relationship that subsequently fell apart. 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