Most same sex weddings to foreigners are essentially invalid according to the Canadian government as reported on January. Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn't even seem very knowledgeable about what his government is doing but declares he has no interest in reopening any discussion about the reality of Canadian marriage scam of the century according to his remarks in an MSNBC report Canada: Marriages of foreign gays are invalid
If this was all that equality marriage meant to them they really should have advertised it this way:
Hey, come to Canada and spend your money on a wedding and a visit. We'll give you a plastic ring out of a cereal box and everything!
(Note: Justice Minister Rob Nicholson as of Friday January 13th is declaring the marriages legal and valid and says that divorce law will be changed so that divorce can be obtained in Canada for the couples married in Canada.)
The problems came up when a couple who are citizens of England and the US ( a resident of Florida) sought to end a Canadian marriage, but could not because their areas of residence did not recognize such unions. Canadian law currently only allows divorce for those who have lived in Canada for 1 year.
The important point here is that marriage is a legal construct to protect two people so they can give a great deal of effort to the relationship and building future prosperity for both members of the couple.
This legal situation may have developed for the traditional marriage but the same protections need to be recognized for same sex couples, at least by the entities that offered what they called legal marriage in the first place.
Minister Nicholson and others understand at least the unfairness of Canada nor recognizing the legality of marriages done in their nation and someone has apparently talked the PM into acquiescing to Common Sense as well.
It is still amazing what games some conservatives will play for money and support from fat cats and right wing ideologues.
First through churches and then through religion and pundits, big money sources have cultivated retrograde morality as the only good in the world so that they can hopefully fool a majority of the people into voting for more tax breaks and privileges for business and fat cats and whatever such backward leaning governance they want enforced on their nations.
Without that use of religion, they would have little hope of extracting so much from those making so much less than they do.
Jeff Sharlet in The Family describes how big business and money interests took over the American church system and used it to shut down the workers rights movement that was developing in the early 20th century and how the resultant right wing church works to perpetuate and expand it's influence (now to other nations as well). (No remuneration was received for the endorsement of this book of which I have read about half so far. The take-over of the somewhat liberal Northern US church of 100 years ago by the right wing is one that needs even more research especially since the right is using religious support to push for wars on the Muslim world these days.)
Also see The Globe and Mail Justice Minister declares all same-sex marriages legal and valid.
For more on the later information that I mentioned above.
