A First for Brokeback Mounties

Pookie sent this from Canada:

By LYN COCKBURN

Will Angelina and Brad ever get married or will they spend all their time creating, producing, adopting and acting like children?
I don't know the answer to that question. What I do know is that Jason Tree, 27, and David Connors, 28, are indeed getting married. On June 30. To each other. In Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
Their nuptials will constitute the first ever same-sex marriage in RCMP history. And yes, the two constables say they have heard the phrase "Brokeback Mounties" several times since they announced their intentions. And they don't seem to mind the various headlines that read "Mounties get their men - each other."

The two met in high school, got together in university, have been dating for eight years and living together for several. They have obviously not made a secret of their sexuality. In fact, when Const. Connors graduated from RCMP training, he had Const. Tree present him with his badge - and announced to the entire class that this was his partner.

"I've been open about my sexuality ever since I began this job," said Tree. "Co-workers, supervisors, management - everyone is supportive."

Or they simply don't care. In the small fishing town of Meteghan where the two live, most residents shrugged their shoulders when the media hit town to ask them what they think of two male Mounties getting married.

Gerald Deveau, 59, who identified himself as a regular churchgoer, said "It's their business ..."
And Dwayne Beck, 23, said he's comfortable with the idea of gay, married cops.
"It's just their choice as men," he said.

Not surprisingly, Herm Wills, president of the Nova Scotia branch of the Campaign Life Coalition, had a different opinion, saying that while he's not opposed to the men doing what they want to do, the traditional definition of marriage should be respected.
And it is. As much as possible, that is, in a nation where the divorce rate is astronomical. If anyone has disrespected marriage, it is us straights. We've stomped on it, kicked it around, neglected it and laughed at it.

It was last summer that gay marriages were legalized across Canada when court judgment after court judgment stated it was unconstitutional to ban them. And up until that time, straights effectively and continually spit on traditional marriage without any assistance whatsoever from gays.

Perhaps the advent of gay marriage will presage a renewal of commitment to the commitment. Maybe, thanks to gays, the divorce stats will go down.
In any event, Connors and Tree are expecting a fairly good crowd at their wedding, with many fellow officers attending.

As much as there is an ongoing controversy about same-sex marriage, this is also a matter of firsts. The first black man to play major-league baseball. The first black woman to win an Oscar. The first woman firefighter, the first Canadian woman to die in combat, the first aboriginal to graduate from medical school. The first Sikh boy allowed to wear his kirpan to school.
In every case, there was an outcry, a sense of outrage, however muffled, however loud.
Opposing pitchers threw balls straight at Jackie Robinson's head. And why did it take until 2001 for Halle Berry, a black woman, to win an Oscar?
The firsts go on and on, dragging prejudice, controversy and condescension with them.
Until, that is, we get bored with them. We are no longer surprised or even interested that the cop is a woman, that our doctor is East Indian. We are surprised at the 1963 fuss when Sidney Poitier became the first black man to win an Oscar.

And one day, probably soon, we will hardly notice that the latest combat casualty in Afghanistan was a woman. We will not be writing articles and letters to the editor that somehow suggest that, had Capt. Nichola Goddard of Calgary been a man, she would not have died in that intense firefight on May 17.

When a first becomes a 10th, then 150th and then 2,000th, we tend to forget we were ever upset in the first place.

And so, for those among us who are worried about the erosion of dignity within the RCMP, there's really nothing to fret about. I doubt Connors and Tree will do anything silly at their wedding - like wear turbans with their dress uniforms.