Same-sex marriage in Canada: 6 years on

Six years after marriage equality became the law of the land on July 20, 2005, Naomi Lakritz reflects on the devastating impact it has had on Canadian society and the institution of marriage.

Before Bill C-38, also known as the Civil Marriage Act (full title: "An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes"), was passed, Lakritz notes, 

 "the naysayers darkly predicted the seismic crumbling of Canadian society as we know it; they said the 'gay agenda' would undermine heterosexual marriage and families.  They predicted that in this new anything-goes Canada . . . people would be marrying their cats, pedophiles would be marrying children, priests would be forced against their religious beliefs to officiate at gay marriages, and on and on. Each imagined scenario was more dire and ridiculous than the last. Oh, and polygamy would be the next step down the proverbial slippery slope to that inky abyss of promiscuity and immorality where everyone would be frolicking.

None of it has happened."

According to the Ottawa-based Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, whose statistics are current to November, 2010, in Nova Scotia, Ontario, British Columbia, the Yukon and Nunavut, the total number of new divorce cases has declined six per cent over the four-year period ending in 2008/2009. 

And, according to Statistics Canada, the number of marriages in 2006, the year after same-sex marriage was legalized, was higher than in 2004, the year before the law came into effect. 
 
Lakritz sums it up:

"So despite the passage of Bill C-38, the sun has continued to come up each morning. Nobody has married their cat, their tree or their favourite living room chair. No priest has been forced to marry same-sex couples. No pedophiles have married children. I've long been a supporter of same-sex marriage, and I got married, too, just last fall — to a man."