I’ve had a funny week. At one point, my government started talking about my marriage not being valid. Not forced divorce, as some people were interpreting it, but it having never actually existed at all.

Now, I have plenty of things that prove a marriage took place and exists. We have wedding bands. We have a bad video and lots of awful photographs. Then there’s the marriage certificate and the licence we applied for from abroad.

Now the whole thing was cleared up pretty quickly – probably less than 24 hours, in fact, from the time the news starting doing the rounds on all the LGB blogs. The Justice Minister made a blanket assurance that the government would introduce legislation to ensure that our marriages are valid. Aw, gee, guys, thanks. (they also blamed the Liberals — who introduced marriage equality — for leaving this loophole for them to abuse).

Pardon me if I’m not suitably impressed. Shall I ask my parents when’s the last time someone questioned the validity of their marriage? And yet we were married in the same city, 30 years apart.

The coverage of the whole thing was dizzying. It’s one thing to want a divorce. It’s another thing to have some jerk federal lawyer tell you your marriage never existed at all. But that’s what happened to the couple currently seeking to divorce.

I spoke to a few law type friends when this all happened. It all happened so quickly, I was left with a kind of whiplash and confusion.

There was a lot of coverage of government people talking about a “rogue federal lawyer” who apparently, came up with this all on his own.I’ve been reliably informed by someone who has done his job in the past that “going rogue” as a federal lawyer is about as easy as running a record mile in 3 feet of water.

And this is what leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This wasn’t the action of one dopey federal lawyer. It was the argument of the government’s lawyers, who represent the government, and this argument went through an approvals process. How many people in that office think it’s ok to fuck around with our marriages for the sake of a legal argument?

Since the Conservatives came into power, they’ve been pretty careful about silencing their homophobic voices. It seems impressive, until this happens and you realise that all they’ve been doing is PR. They’ve been quieting the opinions but not getting rid of them. So while they don’t say stupidly homophobic things in the press anymore, it doesn’t mean they don’t wish that Canada was not a beacon of equality in the world.

And whatever happens, things like this will never stop feeling like a warning.

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