I’m a Lumberjack and I’m Okay
You may well have noticed that my Canadian content has been on the rise of late. I find myself in the grips of a sort of strange bout of nationalism at the moment, which I denote as strange for reasons that will be at least partially outlined in this post. I just can’t muster much enthusiasm for writing about US politics and feel drawn to contributing to the degree of critical dialogue in this frozen tundra I call home.
You’ll have to bear with me, but I’m trying to find ways to satisfy my own Canuck impulses while still making what I write accessible and, perhaps more importantly, engaging to our primarily American audience.
To wit, the revived discussion around same-sex marriage via the squeakers in either direction that have recently occurred in both Maine and Washington prompted me to do some thinking about the same issue north of the border. Riffing off of Jamelle’s post, I decided to check my intuition around the degree to which the issue of marriage equality is, in fact, a non-issue in Canada, contra the state of affairs in the US. It would seem that my intuition is born out by the data of a recent Angus Reid poll on public opinion around same-sex marriage in Canada, Britain, and the US,
Canadians are generally more tolerant to the idea of same-sex marriages than Americans and Britons, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 61 per cent of Canadians say couples of the same gender should continue to be allowed to legally marry in their country.
In contrast, only 33 per cent of Americans and 41 per cent of Britons say that same-sex marriage should be made legal in their respective countries. 36 per cent of respondents in the United States say that such couples should not be granted any type of legal recognition, and 18 per cent of Britons agree.
The poll itself doesn’t go on to the explore the reasons behind the differences of opinion, but I have a working theory that first occurred to me when Reihan Salam made an offhanded comment about the number of South East Asian politicians represented in the Canadian political system at the end of the podcast on race and politics that he, Jamelle, and I recorded a ways back. Pivoting off of E.D’s post on the matter, for a lot of people, the obvious go to answer is religion — i.e. Canada is a lot less religious and, religion being a key factor in determining an individual’s stance on homosexuality, the degree of religiosity exhibited in a country will directly correlate to the attitudes of its citizens towards homosexuality and marriage equality. [Read more →]
November 13, 2009 37 Comments
