As US takes historic step on same-sex rights, Canadian judge watches with pride

Harvey Brownstone, the first openly gay judge in Canada, expresses pride today after the U.S. Department of Justice broadened spousal rights across the U.S. Photo Wikipedia

The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON - One Canadian judge is particularly overjoyed as the U.S. Department of Justice, in a historic move today, broadened same-sex spousal rights across that country.

That’s because this Hamilton-born, CFL-loving, Tiger Cats-cheering judge helped write a page of the American history book.

Harvey Brownstone presided over the same-sex wedding in Toronto that led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last year, a ruling that has since spurred changes in various federal departments.

The latest change comes in a memorandum declaring that all same-sex married couples are to receive the same legal benefits in court cases, prisons and bankruptcy proceedings as other married couples.

Brownstone says the fact Canada blazed the trail for the U.S. on a civil-rights struggle is nothing new.

He notes that this country is where slaves exited the underground railway, where draft-dodgers found refuge during the Vietnam War, and where Jackie Robinson began breaking baseball’s colour barrier.