{Canada} The Commonwealth and Same Sex Marriage

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird deserves to be commended for continuing to speak out about gay rights around the world. His speech this week at a meeting of the Royal Commonwealth Society in London underscored Canadian values.
What Baird doesn't deserve is the shock expressed by gay rights activists in Canada at the government's position on the issue.
What Baird said this week - that "the criminalization of homosexuality is incompatible with the fundamental Commonwealth value of human rights" - is neither surprising nor new. He said as much last year, both in Parliament and at a meeting of the Commonwealth heads of government in Australia. Canada rightly added its voice to the voices of Australian and British officials condemning the dozens of Commonwealth countries that have punitive and regressive laws criminalizing homosexuality. It is the moral responsibility of such countries to support the plight of homosexuals abroad, especially when it involves the actions of fellow Commonwealth countries.
Further, to suggest that the Conservative government wouldn't take such a position is absurd.
In 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Any concerns that support for same-sex marriage would erode under the Conservative government, which includes some caucus members who publicly oppose it, should have been alleviated by the recent move by the government to extend divorce laws to include samesex couples who were married here but live overseas. The government also, in response to a recent court case, stated clearly that same-sex couples who were married in Canada are considered legally married.
The Conservative government will have, in fact, gone further than any Canadian government in its legislative support for same-sex marriage if it reforms divorce laws as it has promised to.
Baird, by speaking loudly about gay rights in the Commonwealth, is standing up for the principles of the Commonwealth and the values of Canadians.

The Ottawa Citizen