The last few days I have been feeling a post coming on but I keep hesitating to write it. I do not want to offend any of my readers in the U.S. However, I have to say what I feel.

What is going in in the U.S. right now is just unbelievable.  Specifically, I am speaking about the decision to not make a decision. More specifically, there is a select group of people who are not allowed to marry the person of their choosing. 

Martin Luther King wrote this letter from the Birmingham jail.  I know it is wordy but please read it slowly and don't skim. 

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

I read this and my frustration increases.  How long can the right to marry a person you love be put off? 

Which brings me to the second part of my post.  

Last week I read a post about being whether or not I am proud of my country and why or why not. You know what? Yes, dammit I am!  In Canada we have Universal Health Care and anyone can marry  the person they love.  It goes without saying that there are some things that I do not make me proud to be Canadian but these two issues alone make me love my home and I fly a flag in front of my home with pride.  I am a child of the earth first and my love for all people comes before my love of Canada. The world would be a better place if we could take away all the imaginary lines that make a country and separate us.  But since those lines are there I am proud to live in a set of lines where discrimination is against the law.

Yesterday while helping my son with his homework we were talking about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which was written into the Canadian Constitution in 1982.  

Section 15 - Equality Rights

1. Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.  (The courts have held that section 15 also protects equality on the basis of other characteristics that are not specifically set out in it. For example, this section has been held to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.                       
2. Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Are you still with me? That makes it unequivocally clear. 

My wish today is that the powers that be in the U.S. will stop saying "wait".