The article draws on post-positivist policy analysis and social movement theory to
explore the impact of law in shaping the politics of social movement claims and
discursive construction of same-sex marriage as public policy issue in Canadian and
American politics. Using the concept of framing, the article discusses the ways in
which lesbian and gay rights claimants in Canada and the USA have framed the issue
of same-sex marriage in two landmark North American rulings on same-sex marriage,
Halpern (Ontario) and Goodridge (Massachusetts). The article finds
that, despite differences in legal policy legacies between Canada and the USA, there
is a common rights frame governing lesbian and gay struggles over same-sex marriage.
Although working with different legal frameworks, judicial precedents, statutory law
and human rights protections, courts reached remarkably similar conclusions about
same-sex marriage and largely endorsed nearly all of the elements in the rights
frame put forth by lesbian and gay litigants. Despite similarities in the framing of
lesbian and gay rights issues in the two countries, the article demonstrates that
the central difference in the same-sex marriage debate in Canada and the USA
concerns the place of the rights frame within the broader political culture.
Baker et al. v State of Vermont et al. (1999) 170 Vt. 194, 744
A.2d 864
3.
Brause and Dugan v Bureau of Vital Statistics (1998) No.
3AN-95-6562 CI, 1998 WL 88743 (Alaska Super. Ct. Feb. 27)
4.
Goodridge v Department of Public Health (2003) Mass. S.J.C. (08860)
5.
Halpern et al. v Canada (2003) O.A.C. 405
6.
Lawrence v Texas (2003) 539 US 558
7.
Loving v Virginia (1967) 388 US 1, 18 L ed 2d 1010, 87 S Ct. 1817
8.
M v H (1999) S.C.J. No. 23
9.
Perez v Sharp (1948) 32 Cal. 2d 711, 198 P.2d 17
10.
Romer v Evans (1996) 517 US 620
11.
Adam, Barry D.
(2003)
‘The Defense of Marriage Act and American Exceptionalism: The
“Gay Marriage” Panic in the United States’
, Journal of the History of Sexuality12:
259-276
.
12.
Adams, Michael
(2003) Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth
of Converging Values.
Toronto: Penguin
.
13.
Andersen, Ellen Ann
(2005) Out of the Closets and Into the Courts: Legal
Opportunity Structure and Gay Rights Litigation.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
.
14.
Bailey, Mary
(2004)
‘Regulation of Cohabitation and Marriage in Canada’
, Law & Policy26(1):
153-175
.
15.
Blais, A.
,
Patrick Fournier
,
Elisabeth Gidengil
,
Neil Nevitte
and
Joanna Everitt
(2006)
‘Election 2006’
, Globe and Mail, 1 February.
16.
Bonauto, Mary
(2001) ‘Memorandum in Support of
Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment, Goodridge v. Department of
Public Health, Massachusetts’, Superior Court County of Suffolk
No. 01-1647-A, 20 August.
17.
Bonauto, Mary
,
Jennifer L. Levi
,
Gary D. Buseck
,
Bennett H. Klein
and
Karen L. Loewy
(2002) ‘Brief of
Plaintiffs-Appellants’, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Supreme
Judicial Court, Suffolk County, No. SJC-08860, 8 November.
18.
Bonauto, Mary
,
Jennifer L. Levi
,
Gary D. Buseck
,
Bennett H. Klein
and
Karen L. Loewy
(2003) ‘Reply Brief of
Plaintiffs-Appellants’, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Supreme
Judicial Court, Suffolk County, No. SJC-08860, 30 January.
19.
Boyd Susan
and
Claire F. L. Young
(2003)
‘From Same Sex to No Sex? Trends Towards Recognition of
(Same-sex) Relationships in Canada’
, Seattle Journal of Social Justice1(3):
757-793
.
20.
Centre for Research and Information on Canada (CRIC)
(2002) The Charter: Dividing or Uniting Canadians.
Montreal: CRIC
.
21.
Chauncey, George
(2004) Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today’s
Debate Over Gay Equality.
New York: Basic Books
.
22.
Cohen, Cathy
(1999) Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of
Black Politics.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
.
Duggan, Lisa
(1992)
‘Making It Perfectly Queer’
, Socialist Review22(1):
11-32
.
25.
Dupuis, Martin
(2002) Same Sex Marriage, Legal Mobilization and the Politics
of Rights.
New York: Peter Lang
.
26.
Egale
(2001a) Egale’s Factum to the Ontario Court in the
Ontario Marriage Challenge (Amended Factum of the Intervener).
Ontario Superior Court of Justice
(Division Court), 12 October.
27.
Egale
(2001b) Reports from the Court in the Ontario Marriage
Challenge Day 1. Available at: http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&menu=51&item=293
Egale
(2005) Ontario Marriage Challenge.
Ottawa: Egale
.
30.
Elliott, R.et al.
(2001) Factum in Halpern and MCCT and Canada et al.
Toronto
.
31.
Epp, Charles R.
(1998) The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists and Supreme
Courts in Comparative Perspective.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
.
32.
Epstein, Steven
(1987)
‘Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity: The Limits of Social Constructionism’
, Socialist Review17:
9-54
.
33.
Eskridge, William N. Jr
. (2000)
‘No Promo Homo: The Sedimentation of Antigay Discourse and the
Channeling Effect of Judicial Review’
, New York University Law Review75 (November):
1327-1378
.
34.
Fischer, Frank
(2003) Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and
Deliberative Practices.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
.
35.
Fletcher, Joseph F.
and
Paul Howe
(2000)
‘Canadian Attitudes Toward the Charter and Courts in Comparative Perspective’
, Choices6:
3-3
.
36.
Fraser, Nancy
(2003) ‘Rethinking Recognition: Overcoming
Displacement and Reification in Cultural Politics’, pp.
21-34 in
Barbara Hobson
(ed.) Recognition Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities,
Agency and Power.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
37.
Gagnon, Alain-G.
and
François Rocher
(1997)
‘Nationalisme Libéral et Construction Identitaire: La
Représentation de la “Nation” dans la
Dynamique Québec-Canada’
, Revue Internationale d’Etudes Canadiennes16:
51-68
.
38.
Gidengil, Elizabeth
,
André Blais
,
Joanna Everitt
,
Patrick Fournier
and
Neil Nevitte
(2005)
‘Back to the Future: Making Sense of the 2004 Federal Election in Canada’
. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political
Science Association, University of Western Ontario, June.
39.
GLAD
(2002) ‘GLAD Suit Seeking Civil Marriage for Gays
and Lesbians Backed by Local and National Organizations’,
Boston: GLAD
.
40.
GLAD
(2005) Goodridge Plaintiffs. Available at: http://www.glad.org/marriage/goodridge_plaintiffs.shtml
41.
Goffman, Erving
(1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of
Experience.
London: Harper and Row
.
42.
Goldberg-Hiller, Jonathan
and
Neal Milner
(2003)
‘Rights as Excess: Understanding the Politics of Special Rights’
, Law & Social Inquiry28(4):
1075-1118
.
43.
Herman, Didi
(1997) The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian
Right.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
.
44.
Jacobs, Andrew M.
(1996)
‘Romer Wasn’t Built in a Day: The Subtle Transformation
in Judicial Argument over Gay Rights’
, Wisconsin Law Review893:
893-940
.
45.
Jenson, Jane
(1989)
‘“Different” but not
“Exceptional”: Canada’s Permeable Fordism’
, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology26(1):
69-94
.
46.
Josephson, Jyl
(2005)
‘Citizenship, Same-sex Marriage, and Feminist Critiques of Marriage’
, Perspectives on Politics3(2):
269-284
.
47.
Lind, Amy
(2004)
‘Legislating the Family: Heterosexist Bias in Social Welfare
Policy Frameworks’
, Journal of Sociology and Social WelfareXXXI:
21-35
.
48.
McAdam, Doug
(1996) ‘The Framing Function of Movement
Tactics: Strategic Dramaturgy in the American Civil Rights
Movement’, pp. 338-356 in
D. McAdam
,
J. D. McCarthy
and
M. N. Zald
(eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
49.
McCarthy, John D.
,
Jackie Smith
and
Mayer N. Zald
(1996) ‘Accessing Public, Media, Electoral, and
Governmental Agendas’, pp. 291-311 in
D. McAdam
,
J. D. McCarthy
and
M. N. Zald
(eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
50.
McCarthy, Martha A.
and
Joanna L. Radbord
(2001) Factum for the Applicant Couples.
51.
Meyer, David S.
and
Suzanne Staggenborg
(1996)
‘Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity’
, American Journal of Sociology101(6):
1628-1660
.
52.
Morgan, Rhiannon
(2004)
‘Advancing Indigenous Rights at the United Nations: Strategic
Framing and Its Impact on the Normative Development of International Law’
, Social & Legal Studies13(4):
481-500
.
53.
Nevitte, Neil
(1996) The Decline of Deference.
Peterborough: Broadview Press
.
54.
Phelan, Shane
(2001) Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and Dilemmas of
Citizenship.
Philadelphia, PA: Routledge
.
55.
Reimer, Sam
(2003) Evangelicals and the Continental Divide: The
Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States.
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press
.
56.
Richardson, Diane
(2005)
‘Desiring Sameness? The Rise of a Neoliberal Politics of Normalisation’
, Antipode37(3):
515-535
.
57.
Scheiderman, David
(1992)
‘Dual(ling) Charters: The Harmonics of Rights in Canada Quebec’
, Ottawa Law Review24:
235-263
.
58.
Scheingold, Stuart A.
(1974/2004) The Politics of Rights: Lawyers, Public Policy,
and Political Change.
Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press
.
59.
Smith, Anna Marie
(2001)
‘The Politicization of Marriage in Contemporary American Public
Policy: The Defense of Marriage Act and the Personal Responsibility Act’
, Citizenship Studies5(3):
303-320
.
60.
Smith, Miriam
(1998)
‘Nationalisme et politiques des mouvements sociaux: Les droits
des gais et lesbiennes et l’incidence de la charte canadienne au Québec’
, Politique et SociétésXVII:
113-140
.
61.
Smith, Miriam
(2004)
‘Segmented Networks: Linguistic Practices in Canadian Lesbian and
Gay Rights Organizing’
, Ethnicities4(1):
99-124
.
62.
Stychin, Carl F.
(1997)
‘Queer Nations: Nationalism, Sexuality and the Discourse of
Rights in Quebec’
, Feminist Legal StudiesV:
3-34
.
63.
Stychin, Carl F.
(2003) Governing Sexuality: The Changing Politics of
Citizenship and Law Reform.
Oxford: Hart
.
64.
Tribe, Lawrence H.
(2004)
‘Lawrence v. Texas: The “Fundamental Right”
That Dare Not Speak Its Name’
, Harvard Law Review117:
1893-1955
.
65.
Warner, Michael
(1999) The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics
of Queer Life.
New York: Free Press
.
66.
Wilcox, Clyde
(2000) Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in
American Politics.
Boulder, CO: Westview
.
