It now appears possible that Bill C-38, the legislation giving Parliamentary recognition to same-sex marriage rights (rights that have already been recognized by courts in seven, soon to be eight, provinces and one territory), won’t pass before the House of Commons adjourns for the summer.

By itself, that news is a sorry indication of how low a priority our Prime Minister places on advancing the human rights agenda — an agenda to which he likes to point as a primary distinguishing feature between his party and the Conservatives. Paul Martin has rejected calls to make MPs sit through the summer, and simply thrown up his hands on the issue. “There is no guarantee in a minority Parliament. Really, that is in the hands of the opposition,” Martin whined last week.

Now, Martin does have a kernel of a point when he tries to pass the blame onto the opposition Conservatives. Of the MPs who are opposed to same-sex marriage, 95 of them sit in the Conservative benches. And, much to their own detriment, the Conservatives have chosen to make this issue the centerpiece of their opposition to the Liberals.

But, with both the NDP and most of the Bloc onside, the vote on equal marriage wouldn’t even be close if it wasn’t for the 35 people nominally elected as Liberal MPs who’ve been staging rather convincing impersonations of Conservative MPs.

Together, this merry band of bigots has proven that, not only is it extremely important for them to be able to decide who is allowed to get married, but that stopping some Canadians from getting married is more important to them than every other issue facing the nation.

I’ve always thought it takes a particular brand of hubris to believe that being a Member of Parliament entitles you to stop two people from getting married just because the idea makes you feel vaguely uncomfortable (with the emphasis on “vague” since no one among the legion of same-sex marriage opponents has ever got around to explaining exactly how one couple getting married threatens the marriage of another couple).

But, imagine how much hatred you’d have to have bottled up inside you in order for you to set aside the rest of the parliamentary agenda in order to oppose gay marriage. It’s almost impossible to contemplate.

Back in May, when the Conservatives actually wanted an election (now they’re publicly expressing fears that “we’ve got to make sure [the government] doesn’t fall by accident.”), they worked with the Bloc to shut Parliament down three days in a row — just to show that they could. Not only did the House of Commons not sit on those days but, with one exception, MPs did not hold committee hearings on those days as well.

Can you guess what the one exception was? That’s right; MPs continued with hearings on Bill C-38 which have largely consisted of a parade of fear-mongers (to quote Elsie Wayne, “why do they have to have parades?”) coming before the committee to predict the end of the world should the bill pass.

Then, last week, both the Conservatives and newly-independent MP Pat O’Brien went public with their strategy to tie the fate of the federal budget to the fate of the same-sex marriage legislation. In O’Brien’s case, he first claimed that he had enough support in the Liberal caucus that he could bring the government down on the budget vote if it refused to delay Bill C-38. When that plan proved to be pure bovine fecal matter, O’Brien left the Liberals to sit as an independent and proceeded to vote against the government on a series of confidence votes. The good news about this futile tactic is that it should finally spell the end of O’Brien’s inauspicious career as an elected official.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives were — first quietly and then openly — trying to trade an end to the bitter fight against the budget for a delay in voting on C-38. “There are some negotiations between myself and the Government House Leader to see if we can arrive at a compromise we can both live with,” said Conservative Jay Hill. “What we would be looking to do for them is allow C-48 to go without having full-court press and pushing them into a position where they would either have to bring in time allocation with the public black eye that always brings with it or extend the sitting until July. If we were to agree to have the House wrap up next week and them to get C-48, and on our side if we were to get delay of C-38 (the gay marriage bill) to the fall and perhaps some other concessions, we’d be happy.” Or, in other words, hate conquers all.

As Alex Munter and Ellen Russell argue in a recent op-ed piece, these stalling tactics are utterly transparent, particularly given that every MP has already made up their mind on how to vote. “Opponents of extending civil marriage rights to all Canadians are complaining bitterly that this issue is being fast-tracked. Two years later — after eight court decisions, one Supreme Court reference, hundreds of witnesses, one election campaign and three votes in Parliament — it makes us wonder how they define ‘fast-track.’ At the rate these MPs seem to want to move, we would still be waiting for women to get the vote.”

picture-2299.jpg

Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...