Tuesday, June 25, 2002
New Quebec law gives equality to same-sex parents
A story published today by the New York Times reports that at the end of
the month of June, a new Quebec provincial law goes into effect giving
same-sex couples the same full parental rights and obligations extended to
heterosexual couples. Pensions, health insurance, tax laws, inheritance and
other benefits that pertain to families headed by heterosexuals will now
apply to same-sex families.
Canadian activists are heralding the June 7 passage of Bill 84 by the Quebec
provincial legislature as the most important advance for their cause since
the Netherlands granted same-sex couples the right to marry last year.
The new law gives gays and lesbians equal standing with heterosexuals in
adopting children. It allows two men or two women to appear as equal parents
on a birth certificate, an internationally recognized document, which means,
among other things, that either adult has the right to travel across borders
with the child without the risk of being accused of kidnapping.
The law also grants same-sex couples the same status and duties as married
heterosexual couples in a legal relationship that is called "civil union," a
quasi marriage already granted in nearby Vermont.
Six of the 10 provinces of Canada grant some parental rights to same-sex
couples, as do many states in the United States. But Quebec will now extend
greater parental rights to gay couples than elsewhere in the world, rights
advocates here say.
The Quebec legislature did not have the power to grant gays the right to
marry, because marriage is under federal jurisdiction. But the new law, the
advocates say, is still superior in some ways to the Dutch law, especially
for domestic partner parents.
"Gay and lesbian couples will not have illegitimate children any more," said
Marie-France Bureau, a lawyer specializing in human rights and family law.
"The law sends a clear message to the population that gay and lesbian
families are as worthy as other families, and children of these unions
deserve all the protections that other children have."
