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Originally Posted by peter12
Weird response. First of all, regardless of what Webster's says, liberty is not unconstrained freedom from authoritative institutions or rules. That's actually called nihilism.
We live in democracies where the right to rule is given by majority consent. In cases like gay marriage where the legitimacy of a right granted and protected by the state is not entirely clear-cut, democratic options should be exercised to facilitate a dialogue.
Gay marriage in Canada does not mean that Canadians are more tolerant people than Americans. It was legalized in Canada by the elites, not through democratic or constitutional consensus.
Even if Canada is more free than the United States, which I actually believe it somewhat is, we are a fairly insignificant middle power state which has literally no sway in global politics or the political culture on liberal democracy. Following my above argument, every liberal country holds themselves to an American standard of liberty, whether they agree with it or not.
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The question was whether Canada is more liberal that the US. Your bolded comment suggests that if the decision was put through a referendum in Canada it would have been defeated, I would dispute that, certainly there is way more support for gay marriages in Canada than the US.
BTW I don't know what you mean by "Constitutional Consensus", if you mean through a courts interpretation of what the Charter of Human Rights guarantees, then that is exactly how it was legalized in the provinces.