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It's proving increasingly difficult to call oneself a friend of America these days. I've always taken a perverse pleasure in being a grumpy young contrarian-a less eloquent, less boozy version of Christopher Hitchens-and as part of that mantle, I have eschewed the anti-American bias innate to most Canadian discourse. I try not to mock America's ignorance of Canada and the world, but instead applaud them for their idealism; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are notions worthy of some blind loyalty. I support the right and unique privilege of America to export democracy around the world, as it fills a void left by an increasingly impotent United Nations. And as for the much-maligned "American culture" that dominates our screens and airwaves, I tend to think that if Canadian consumers choose CNN over CBC and Rush Limbaugh over Sheila Rogers, so be it: the consumer in a free market, like the voter in a free society, is always right.

The concern for armchair libertarians such as myself is that these days, America-and the media that mirrors it-seems less keen on being keepers of that flame of freedom than on fanning the flames of public morality. Two good examples of this new American morality can be found in the Janet Jackson nipple flap and in the controversy that surrounds Massachusetts' same-sex marriage court ruling. On the surface, the two don't appear to have much in common-one deals with a purported "wardrobe malfunction" seen by 130 million people, and the other deals with a legal right sought by exponentially fewer-and yet they each represent a strain of the malodorous puritanism that's sweeping American society. What's particularly remarkable about the Super Bowl slip is how commentators blithely glossed over the simulated sexual assault that lead to the exposed breast, never mind the violence inherent in the game itself, and focused instead on the moral ruin that such fleeting nudity would cause. Then, less than 24 hours after the incident had occurred, a federal investigation into Nipplegate was launched.

More troubling has been reaction to the aforementioned Massachusetts court ruling. Bereft of other means of "motivating the troops" now that their man is in the White House, America's religious right has used the court ruling as grist for what promises to be their biggest fundraising drive ever. Here's a sample of one direct-mail campaign, from the group Focus on the Family: "The homosexual activist movement is poised to administer a devastating and potentially fatal blow to the traditional family. And sadly, very few Christians in positions of responsibility are willing to use their influence to save it." The goal of this group and others: to get a constitutional amendment banning gays from getting married, thus negating the power of heathen courts to impose their secular brand of justice on an unsuspecting public. Supposedly, the end result of a ban would be strengthened families, as the subversive attempts of homosexuals to undermine marriage would finally be put to rest. And yet the breeders seem to be doing just fine on the marital sabotage front: only 56 percent of American adults are married now, compared to 75 percent 30 years ago, while the proportion of married-with-children families has dropped to 26 percent-from 45 percent in the early 70s. President Bush himself was driven to declare, in his State of the Union address last month, that heterosexual marriage was "one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization;" interesting, then, that only homosexuals seem keen enough to ensure that the institution does endure.

America is a nation of judges: in popular culture, this manifests itself in reality television and its obsession with voting people off islands, out of relationships or into record contracts; in political culture, it's a pinwheel of explosive issues-patriotism, abortion and sexuality-that has lawmakers likewise obsessed. While Canada has largely been defined, in moral matters, by Pierre Trudeau's famous dictum that "the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation," our southern neighbours seem more interested in setting up bedside seats to adjudicate the proceedings (and perhaps from a country that elects judges, this belief that "anyone can judge" shouldn't come as a surprise). Where opposition to gay marriage does exist in this country, it is couched in more diplomatic language; Canada's most socially conservative political leader, Stephen Harper, will only commit to putting the issue to a free vote in parliament should he become prime minister. Contrast that to the U.S., where even the liberal former president, Bill Clinton, felt obliged to sign the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 to establish his centrist bona fides; the act, while not as strong as a constitutional ban, denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and lets individual states ignore marriages licensed in other jurisdictions.

It's fair to say that American opposition to gay marriage-and it is significant, at over 60 percent-has less to do with protecting the crumbling institution, and more to do with a need to assign blame for that which ails it. America is losing jobs: blame free trade, not weak productivity. Terrorists attack America: blame foreign nationals, not faulty intelligence. Marriage is in decline: blame those who want to marry but can't, and not those who can but won't. How ironic it is that Canada, once labeled "Soviet Canuckistan" by former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, is now held up in world circles as a model of a free and just society, and not the United States; it is the "Canadian model," not the U.S.'s, which the Republic of Croatia is using to establish an independent and impartial judiciary. And it was under the headline "Canada's New Spirit" that this country made the cover of The Economist last year, our "Canadian way" lauded as "an attractive alternative to an increasingly conservative America." Less than two months later, on the cover of the very same magazine, came a very different headline: "America Versus the World: Greatest Danger, or Greatest Hope?" The answer to that question, sadly, seems less certain than ever.

Matt O'Grady one of our most prized assets.