Protestors display their objection to California's ongoing gay marriage ban at a rally in Vancouver last Tuesday (May 26).

Credit: Jackie Wong

NEWS (ONLINE EXCLUSIVE): Local gay rights advocates respond to Prop 8

The California Supreme Court voted last Tuesday (May 26) to uphold the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, much to the frustration of LGBT advocates across North America. That same night in Vancouver, Roger Chin proposed to his partner, Jim VanDeventer, in front of a crowd of supporters at a rally he organized in response to the vote. “The reason why I wanted to organize this was because I have a twin brother down [in the States], I know people in California, and it just seems so unfair that here I am in Canada, I’ve got the right to be able to ask ‘Will you marry me?’... But in the U.S., people can’t,” Chin told the crowd.

Chin and VaDeventer have been working on a documentary about bi-national gay couples who live, effectively in exile, in Canada. Some of the subjects of the documentary spoke at the rally, including Michael Smith. He and his partner, Paul Holzapfel, were among the 18,000 couples married in California last year during the brief period that gay marriage was legal in the state. Until last week’s Supreme Court decision ruled that gay couples who wed before November 2008 could remain married, Smith and Holzapfel weren’t sure if their marriage would stand or be annulled. “Every Canadian is perfectly justified in going their merry way and not worrying about [Proposition 8],” he told the crowd at the Vancouver rally. “But all around the world right now, people in the Middle East are being killed for being gay. In Moscow, people are being denied the right to assemble and have been thrown in jail for trying to have a pride parade. This is a human-rights issue.”

Of course, the right to marriage isn’t the only thing gays and lesbians in the U.S. have had to fight for. Donald Lim was processed out of his 17-year job in the U.S. military when his employers discovered he was gay. “Someone sent an anonymous tip saying I was a danger to the U.S. because I [am] gay,” he told WE. The primary reason military personnel used to keep gays and lesbians out of the military, he says, was unit morale. “They’re afraid that the gays would hit on their heterosexual coworkers, as if gays and lesbians couldn’t control their sexual urges,” he says. “I can tell you there are more cases of sexual harassment of heterosexual men against the female servicewomen than they will acknowledge or let people believe.”

Since leaving the military in 1993, Lim, who was born in Colorado, moved to the U.K. to live with his partner, Steven Rowe, under a civil partnership. The couple moved to Vancouver last fall. Despite the comparative liberties Lim and Rowe enjoy as a gay couple in Canada, Lim remains mindful of inequalities that pose a threat to Canadians’ safety when travelling in the U.S. “Canadians who are married can’t go into the United States as a married [gay] couple; they have to go in as singles,” he says. “If one of you gets into an accident, the other person can’t be there to help you. You can be denied access to your spouse.”

West End residents Barry Thorsness and Louis Martinez say they can breathe easier in Vancouver than they could when they were living in the United States. Thorsness was born in Prince George and has U.S. citizenship, and Martinez, born in Nebraska, is a U.S. citizen. “We thought of the differences of being gay in an American environment and the difference it would be living in Canada,” says Martinez. “Here it seems... less threatening to live out your life and enjoy it more. In the U.S., you’re always on the alert. I always wonder... am I walking butch enough not to create a situation? Here, I haven’t had to do that.”

Despite our considerable gains, absolute safety for the LGBT community is still not a reality in Vancouver. City councillors Tim Stevenson and Ellen Woodsworth will introduce a motion this week calling for a consolidated presence of City of Vancouver service groups in this year’s pride parade, with the theme of eliminating violence against the LGBT community. The motion is motivated in part by the numerous violent attacks on members of the LGBT community over the last three years, and the fact that there are federal and provincial laws against hate crimes that have never been enforced.