I recieved this from Canadians for Equal Marriage. It seems that the new right wing government wants to "revisit" the equal marriage issue. No matter that the courts have declared it a protected right. Please read and help if you can.
Stephen Harper has issued a wake-up call to Canadians. He has made clear his government will table a motion to reopen the divisive debate on equal marriage. In his own words, this will happen “sooner rather than later” after Parliament resumes sitting on April 3.
When Mr. Harper became Prime Minister, our opponents went into high gear. When he appointed Vic Toews as Justice Minister, they cheered even more.
Vote Marriage Canada (formerly Defend Marriage Canada) gave ex-MP Pat O’Brien a new permanent job as its Executive Director. A few weeks later, Focus on the Family, the Canadian branch of a powerful American religious right organization, opened an office in Ottawa under the banner of the Institute for Marriage and Family Canada. IMFC is specifically focused on convincing MPs to support their “family values” agenda, starting with turning back the clock on equal marriage.
These are just two examples of how opponents of equal marriage, backed by their powerful American friends, are preparing to unleash a multi-million dollar campaign to take away those precious rights we fought so hard to establish.
With a vote looming and our opponents mobilizing we have no choice but to act. We can’t afford to stand idly by while millions of dollars are mobilized against us. We can’t afford not to answer this wake-up call as a vote in Parliament looms.
That’s why Egale is bringing back Canadians for Equal Marriage (CEM).
Of course, for Canadians for Equal Marriage to be effective it must be more than a rag tag group of volunteers. It needs the financial capacity to do what it did so effectively when Bill C-38 (the equal marriage bill) was before Parliament. CEM doesn’t need to match our opponents dollar for dollar, but CEM needs to be in the game - seriously in the game.
Canadians for Equal Marriage urgently needs your financial support if we are to ensure defeat of the Harper government’s motion. We must not be complacent! We cannot wait for the motion to be tabled – that will be too late. We need your help now!
Please go to
www.equal-marriage.ca/donate.php and donate today. You can also make a donation by calling 613 237-3985 or by sending a cheque to Canadians for Equal Marriage, 310 – 396 Cooper Street, Ottawa, Ontario K2P 2H7.
Our opponents are quietly working behind the scenes to pressure and mislead MPs into believing they should re-open this divisive debate. They say the process by which the equal marriage bill passed was flawed and that debate was stifled. The truth is the bill was debated for 2 ½ years, long after all MPs had made up their minds. The truth is the bill would have passed whether or not there was Cabinet solidarity. Opponents are framing the issue as being about democracy, when really it’s about rolling back the clock on equality.
We need your help to get the message out, and to properly frame the debate in the media. We need a base in Ottawa, to mobilize our supporters and to maintain an active presence in the media. Your donation to
www.equal-marriage.ca/donate.php is needed for us to preserve equal marriage and prevent Parliament from turning LGBT people into second-class citizens.
Canadians for Equal Marriage needs your help to get the message across to MPs who will be increasingly pressured by our well-funded opponents. We need your support to maintain and increase the slim lead in votes that we now appear to have. If we stand idly by that lead could easily be reversed. Please go to
www.equal-marriage.ca/donate.php and donate today.
When Stephen Harper tables the motion to reopen the marriage debate, we need to have already secured the votes needed to defeat it. If we wait until then to act, it will be too late. It’s hard to believe that we need to convince MPs not to re-open the divisive marriage debate. But we do.
We urgently need your financial support. Please donate to Canadians for Equal Marriage today. You can make your donation online at
www.equal-marriage.ca/donate.php, by phone to 613-237-3985 or by mail to Canadians for Equal Marriage, 310 – 396 Cooper Street, Ottawa, Ontario K2P 2H7.
We must not be complacent! We must be ready to defend our hard-fought rights. And we cannot do that without your financial support.
Thank you so much for your generosity.
Glen MurrayCanadians for Equal Marriage
www.equal-marriage.ca
