Equality Rights and Sexual Orientation : Confronting Heterosexual Family Privilege

Heterosexual married couples are supported by a wide array of legal privileges, benefits, rights and powers. Recently, these legal advantages - which include, but are not limited to, economic support such as tax and pension benefits - have been extended in some areas of Canadian law to unmarried cohabiting heterosexual couples. Where the law continues to extend advantages to married couples not available to unmarried couples, heterosexual couples can choose to "opt in" to these advantages by marrying. Persons in same-sex relationships, by contrast, have no choice in the matter. They are excluded from legal definitions of spouse and their relationships are not legally recognized. At the same time, s.15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The author explores the reasons for the existence and persistence of this contradictory legal situation, and critiques the rationalizations that are used to sustain the social and legal subordination of gays and lesbians. Until legal decision-makers are willing to confront and dismantle the legal manifestations of heterosexism, freedom and equality will continue to be denied on the basis of sexual identity