Canada's Senate voted to adopt landmark legislation to legalize gay marriage nationwide, despite fierce opposition from Conservatives and religious leaders.
The bill grants same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman, something already legal in a majority of Canadian provinces.
The legislation drafted by Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority Liberal Party government was easily passed on Tuesday by the Senate, which essentially rubber stamps any bill already passed by the House of Commons, which passed it late last month.
The bill becomes law when it is signed by Canada's governor-general. Once that happens, Canada will become only the fourth country in the world to legalize gay marriage nationwide, after the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
The 47-21 Senate vote came after years of court battles and debate that divided families, religious groups and even political allies.
The final word in the debate came from a Liberal senator who read to the hushed chamber an e-mail from a Yukon territory constituent.
"You have no idea what a difference it makes to the human spirit to know that you are treated equally under the law," said Ione Christensen, the 71-year-old senator from Whitehorse.
There are an estimated 34,000 gay and lesbian couples in Can-ada, according to government statistics.
Martin, a Roman Catholic, has said that despite anyone's personal beliefs, all Canadians should be granted the same rights to marriage.
Churches have expressed concern that their clergy would be compelled to perform same-sex ceremonies. The legislation, however, states that the bill only covers civil unions, not religious ones, and no clergy would be forced to perform same-sex ceremonies unless they choose to do so.
The Roman Catholic Church, the predominant Christian denomination in Canada, has vigorously opposed the legislation from the outset, saying that it would harm young children in particular.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS