IHT Rendezvous (NYT firewall, I presume):
Canada was marching ahead, perhaps more quietly, but certainly more quickly. Amazingly when seen from this side of the northern border, it took Canada, a vast, diverse, multicultural and bilingual nation, only two years — from June 2003, when same-sex marriage was legalized in Ontario province, to July 2005, when Parliament passed the nationwide Civil Marriage Act.It's an interesting question as to why so much of the developed world is so far ahead of the US on gay civil rights.
Nearly seven years ago Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage. “It’s a fact of life here,” said Kim Campbell, the former Canadian prime minister with whom I spoke last week about same-sex marriage, abortion and other social issues roiling American — but not Canadian — politics.
