Sometimes it makes me sad, seeing what passes for politics here. For all the talk of freedom that gets bandied about here, the whole country is rife with people - conservatives, generally - who want you to live your life the way they live theirs.
First, there's the gay marriage amendment, which, incidentally, has also been passed in 19 states.
Now, there's a bill to make English the "national language."
Prayer in schools, teaching creationism, pledges of allegiance, gay scouts, flag burning - it's all about one group trying to get another to behave like it.
Why don't we have these problems in Canada? (I realize I'm using we both as Canadians and Americans. Sorry.) We've had gay marriage for a few years, and there's no big problem. The sky hasn't fallen. Straight marriage hasn't gone away.
We function just fine with two languages - and even in a third (Inuktitut - notice this pic of the GG with the earpiece for translation). Parliament works fine in two languages. The court systems work fine. The federal civil service functions just fine. I recall once being at a friend's place watching TV - nothing was on the English stations, so we watched a French one. No big deal. No one, apart from of course a few nutcases (oh yeah, and the Gov of Quebec) want to force kids to speak one language or the other.
We have gay scouts (the US top scouting rank is eagle scout. In Canada, it's a Queen's Scout. Go figure). My mom is a high school principal (was in Canada, is in the US) and she one said to me, "We used to say the lord's prayer every morning (this is in the 90s). And then we said, hm, we probably shouldn't be doing this any more. So we stopped." And no one kicked up a fuss, no one talked about war on christianity. No one cares if you burn a Canadian flag - happens all the time in Alberta and Quebec (and in Danny Williams' backyard, no doubt).
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Oh please, Joe, I was being sarcastic. Though I am almost certain that I've seen the Red and White burned in Quebec . . . . I do also recall after the election of the Martinite government, the Globe et al published a comment from some people from Alberta who, upset that Ontario (richest, biggest, most populated province) provided the backbone of the Liberal government, that "Canada was dead to her" or something similar. And you never hear an Ontarian - or for that matter, anyone other than an Albertan - talking about firewalls.
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