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Sexual Orientation and Legal Discourse: Legal Constructions of the “Normal” Family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Lori G. Beaman
Lori G. Beaman
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Lethbridge
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Abstract

Legal method, or the way in which legal claims are processed, is an integral component of the law's authority to include, exclude and deny claims and experiences. This paper explores the issue of sexual orientation and the legal construction of family as it emerges in the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Egan v. Canada. The analysis includes a detailed consideration of the ways in which the Supreme Court of Canada incorporates assumptions about the nature of family life as a relevant factor in its assessment of the meaning of the word “spouse” under the Old Age Security Act. The process by which notions of the normal family become legitimized through legal discourse is deconstructed using the work of Mary Jane Mossman and Michel Foucault. Mossman develops an analytic framework which illuminates the ways in which legal method works to preserve the power of law and the illusion that law produces “truth.” Michel Foucault considers both the ways in which knowledge is produced as truth, and its integral links to power.

Résumé

La méthode juridique, ou la façon de traiter des requêtes légales, fait partie intégrante de l'autorité du droit d'inclure, d'exclure ou de rejeter des demandes et des expériences. Cet article explore le thème de l'orientation sexuelle et de la construction légale de la famille tel qu'il apparaît dans la décision Egan de la Cour suprême. L'analyse aborde en détails comment la Cour suprême du Canada intègre des présuppositions sur la vie familiale comme facteurs pertinents lorsqu'elle détermine le sens du mot ‘conjoint’ dans le contexte de la Loi sur la sécurité de la vieillesse. Le procès par lequel des conceptions de la famille normale sont légitimées dans le discours juridique est déconstruit à partir des travaux de Mary Jane Mossman et de Michel Foucault. Mossman propose un cadre analytique qui permet d'éclairer comment la méthode juridique fonctionne pour préserver le pouvoir du droit et l'illusion qu'il produit de la ‘vérité’. Michel Foucault tient compte tant des façons de produire le savoir comme vérité et de ses liens intrinsèques avec le pouvoir.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Fall/automne 1999 , pp. 173 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1999

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References

1. (1995) 2 R.C.S. 513 [hereinafter Egan].

2. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c.11 [hereinafter Charter]. Mossman examines a number of seminal cases in women's rights in Canada, including: In Re French, (1905) 37 N.B.R. 359. Mabel French's fight to be admitted to the bar; and Reference Re Meaning of the Word “Persons” in s. 24 of the B.N.A. Act (1928) S.C.R. 276; Edwards v. Canada (1930), A.C. 124, women's fight to be declared “persons,” and therefore eligible to become senators.

3. For an examination of the power-knowledge matrix, see Bunting, A., “Feminism, Foucault, and Law as Power/Knowledge” (1992) 30: 3Alta L. Rev. 829Google Scholar.

4. R.S.C. 1985, c. O-9.

5. Mossman, M. J., “Feminism and Legal Method: The Difference it Makes” (1986) 3 Australian Journal of Law and Society 30Google Scholar.

6. Ibid.

7. I have chosen Egan rather than the more recently decided Vriend v. Alberta (1998) 1 R.C.S. 493, 181 A.R., SCC file 25285, April 2, 1998, (1998) 156 D.P.L.R. (4th) 385 [hereinafter Vriend], because of the interesting issues the case raises around definitions of family.

8. Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1977) at 27Google Scholar.

9. Foucault is not without his critics on this conceptualization of power. For some interesting comments on this issue, see Nicholson, L. J., ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 1990)Google Scholar.

10. Foucault, M., The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, vol. 1 (New York: Vintage, 1978)Google Scholar.

11. Ibid. at 26.

12. Herman, D., Rights of Passage: Struggles for Lesbian and Gay Legal Equality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) at 11Google Scholar. For a discussion of levels of public hostility toward the extension of rights to gays and lesbians and levels of discrimination, see Riggle, E. D. & Ellis, A., “Political Tolerance of Homosexuals: The Role of Group Attitudes and Legal Principles” (1994) 26: 4Journal of Homosexuality 135CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Samar, V. J., “A Moral Justification for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Legislation” (1994) 27: 3–4Journal of Homosexuality 147CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

13. Smart, C., Feminism and the Power of Law (London: Routledge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. See also Bunting, supra note 3.

15. Tully, J., Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995) at 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Stychin, C. F., “Novel Concepts: A Comment on Egan and Nesbit v. The Queen” (1995) 6: 4Constitutional Forum 101 at 103Google Scholar.

17. Herman, supra note 12 at 22. The “need” for expert voices in the legal process is also challenged in other contexts: Battered Woman's Syndrome has been the centre of a similar debate over the use of experts to displace the story of the battered woman. See Beaman, L. G., “Women's Defences: Contextualizing Dilemmas of Difference and Power” (1998) 9: 3Woman and Criminal Justice 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. For a brief review of human rights legislation and gay and lesbian rights, see McAllister, D. M., “Egan: A Crucible for Human Rights” (1994) 5 National Journal of Constitutional Law 94Google Scholar.

19. See Douglas v. R. (1992) 98 D.L.R. (4th) 129; Re Haig et al. v. R. (1991), 86 D.L.R. (4th) 617.

20. See Metro Toronto Reference Library v. CUPE Local 1582 (1995), 51 L.A.C. (4th) 69.

21. See Vriend, supra note 7.

22. See Potter v. Korn, (1996) 134 D.L.R. (4th) 437.

23. See Bezaire v. Bezaire (1979) 2 Fam. Law Rev. 51 as cited in Zicklin, G., “Deconstructing Legal Rationality: The Case of Lesbian and Gay Family Relationships” (1995) 21 Marriage and Family Review 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Herman, supra note 12 at 22.

25. Stychin, supra note 16 at 104. Pothier summarizes the decision this way: “The Supreme Court unanimously concluded that sexual orientation discrimination was encompassed by Section 15 of the Charter, but there was little agreement beyond that. Only a bare majority of the Court (Justices Cory, Iacobucci, McLachlin, L'Heureux-Dube and Sopinka), in multiple judgments, found discrimination within the meaning of Section 15 on the facts of this case. The majority result, ruling against Egan and Nesbit, was produced by a combination of the four judges who found no discrimination (La Forest, Gonthier, Lamer, and Major) plus Justice Sopinka, who found the prima facie violation to be saved by Section 1. Justices Cory, Iacobucci, McLachlin, and L'Heureux-Dube, in multiple judgments in dissent, found a section 15 violation that could not be saved by Section 1, and would have ordered (effective a year after the Court's judment) a ‘reading in’ remedy to cover same-sex couples.” See Pothier, D., “M'Aider, Mayday: Section 15 of the Charter in Distress” (1996) 6 N.J.C.L. 295 at 299Google Scholar.

26. For a discussion of the wisdom of gays and lesbians seeking family status, see Boyd, S., “Expanding the ‘Family’ in Family Law: Recent Ontario Proposals on Same Sex Relationship” (1994) 7 Canadian Journal of Women and Law 545Google Scholar.

27. Stychin, supra note 16 at 105.

28. See Vriend, supra note 7.

29. See also Pothier, supra note 25.

30. Eaton, M., “Patently Confused: Complex Inequality and Canada v. Mossop” (1994) Rev. of Constitutional Studies 203 at 214Google Scholar.

31. Ryder, B., “Egan v. Canada: Equality Deferred, Again” (1996) 4 Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal 101 at 107Google Scholar.

32. For a discussion of this “New Right” ideology in Canada, see Erwin, L., “Neoconservatism and the Canadian Pro-Family Movement” (1993) 30: 3Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 401CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. As I was researching this paper, I experienced a sense of déjà vu as I read Mary Eaton's compelling analysis of Canada v. Mossop, see supra note 30. Eaton writes: “For some, the very result of Mossop virtually compels the conclusion that the Court is ‘homophobic’ and that queers constitute the most detested and least legally respected amongst disempowered groups.”

34. For example, it might be argued that without the Egan decision, the Supreme Court would not have read sexual orientation into the Alberta Individual's Rights Protection Act, as it did in Vriend.

35. Herman, supra note 12 at 45.

36. Mossman, supra note 5.

37. For a discussion of the hierarchy of discourses, see Smart, supra note 13.

38. As Eaton's work shows, the problem becomes even more complicated when discrimination is experienced on more than one ground. Eaton, supra note 30; Eaton, M., “Homosexual Unmodified: Speculations on Law's Discourse, Race, and the Construction of Sexual Identity” in Herman, D. & Stychin, C., eds., Legal Inversions: Lesbians, Gay Men and the Politics of Law (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995) 46Google Scholar.

39. Similarly in Vriend, supra note 7.

40. Again, I admit to taking some liberties in interpretation here—the judgment of LaForest, J. is rather distinct in its approach.

41. Johnson, R., “‘Leaving Normal’: Constructing the family at the Movies and in Law” in Beaman, L. G., ed., Perspectives on Deviance: The Construction of Deviance in Everyday Life (Toronto: Prentice Hall, 1999) 161 [forthcoming]Google Scholar.

42. Cory, J. explicitly rejects this approach in his judgment.

43. In an interesting play on words, Dianne Pothier points out that this sentence also holds true if we substitute the word “homophobia” for “marriage” here. See supra note 25.

44. Egan, supra note 1.

45. Stychin points to the invisible background norms implicit in the construction of categories such as those found in s.15 of the Charter. He argues “Each category becomes a distinction from the norm, for which protection is appropriate. The norm though remains in place, permanently fixed, immutable, and ‘undeconstructed’. The categories of prohibited discrimination represent mere deviations.” Stychin, C. F., “Essential Rights and Contested Identities: Sexual Orientation and Equality Rights Jurisprudence in Canada” (1995) 8: 1Can. J. L. & Jur. 49 at 52Google Scholar.

46. Stychin, ibid.

47. Lerner, G., The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Lerner, G., The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen Seventy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

48. O'Brien, M., The Politics of Reproduction (Boston: Routledge & Keagan Paul, 1981)Google Scholar.

49. See Ross, J. I., ed., Violence in Canada: Sociopolitical Perspectives (Toronto: Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar; Johnson, H., Dangerous Domains: Violence Against Women in Canada (Toronto: Nelson Canada, 1996)Google Scholar; McLeod, L., Battered But Not Beaten: Preventing Wife Battering in Canada (Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1987)Google Scholar.

50. Egan, supra note 1 at para. 32.

51. For an in-depth discussion see Casswell, D. G., Lesbians, Gay Men, and Canadian Law (Toronto: Edmond Montgomery, 1996)Google Scholar.

52. Egan, supra note 1 at para. 22.

53. For an interesting discussion of the use of animal experiments to legitimize the status quo, see Haraway, J., Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature (London, Free Association Books, 1990)Google Scholar.

54. Ryder, B., “Equality Rights and Sexual Orientation: Confronting Heterosexual Family Privilege” (1990) 9 Can. J. Fam. L. 39Google Scholar.

55. Ibid. at 47.

56. Boswell, J., Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (New York: Villard, 1994)Google Scholar.

57. Mossman, supra note 5. Not all courts take a narrow approach. Lord Justice Roskill in Re X (a minor) [1975] 1 All E.R. 697 (C.A.) states: “[T]he mere fact that the Courts have never stretched out their arms so far as it is proposed in this case is itself no reason for not stretching out their arms further than before when necessary in a suitable case. There is never a precedent for anything until it has been done once.” at 705–06.

58. Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia, [1989] 1 S.C.R. 143.

59. Egan, supra note 1 at para. 58–59.

60. For an excellent discussion of the details and implications of this shift, see Berg, B., “Fumbling Towards Equality: Promise and Peril in Egan” (1996) 5 National Journal of Constitutional Law 263Google Scholar.

61. [1995] 2 S.C.R. 418.

62. Ryder, supra note 31 at 105.

63. See L'Heureux-Dube, J's (dissent) discussion of the usefulness and appropriate use of the intention of Parliament in Mossop, supra note 33.

64. Pothier, supra note 25, argues that the financial deference by the Supreme Court immunizes the government from Charter scrutiny.

65. Jackman, M., “Protecting Rights and Protecting Democracy: Judicial Review Under Section 1 of the Charter” (1996) 34 Osgoode Hall L. J. 661 at 667Google Scholar.

66. Egan, supra note 1 at para. 113.

67. Wintemute explores the Federal Court of Appeal's discussion of parliamentary intent. Wintemute, R., “Sexual Orientation Discrimination as Sex Discrimination: Same-Sex Couples and the Charter in Mossop, Egan and Layland” (1994) 39 McGill L.J. 429Google Scholar.

68. Ryder notes the reliance on an interpretive approach that imputes Parliamentary intent is often used to “diminish the scope of protection provided by antidiscriminatory legislation.” Ryder, B., “Family Status, Sexuality and ‘The Province of the Judiciary’: The Implications of Mossop V. A.G. Canada” (1993) 13 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 3 at 5Google Scholar.

69. An alternative viewpoint is that such steps are simply a necessary part of the process of gaining rights for previously excluded groups, and it is therefore too strong to claim that no gain has been made. The recent S.C.R. decision in Vriend may be support for this argument. The Supreme Court appears to be much less equivocal in its reading of sexual orientation in Alberta's human rights legislation. However, the subsequent tension in Alberta while the provincial government decided whether to use the “notwithstanding” clause illustrates the precariousness of the apparent victory for gays and lesbians represented by the decision. In addition, how the Alberta courts will actually respond to the reading in remains to be seen.

70. The panopticon is, of course, a central focus of Foucault's discussion. See supra note 8.

71. For a thorough discussion of the various splits in decision on the numerous issues in Egan, see Wintemute's case comment, supra note 67 at 707. He also challenges the apparent victory of the significance of the “analogous ground” aspect of the decision.