My point is that we treat our own people far too shabbily for a first world country. It's appalling.

Exactly. I don't have a problem with the constitution in and of itself, I have a problem with how it's been interpreted legally over the last 200 years...

Well that's part of the furor over the Supreme Court - interpretist judges vs. literal judges. Yes, we've always said it's a "living document," and I agree that sometimes it's a little too revered, but we have tried to change it and mold it and it's for the most part worked (ignoring that whole Prohibition thing).

What is your system of checks and balances?

Ours is similar - Supreme Court justices are also appointed with confirmation by both the House and the Senate. Sadly, some of the executive branch is trying to use the legislative brance to curtail the scope of the judicial branch, which is upsetting the delicate balance, and I'm none too happy about it, but so far we're holding out. :)

Well surely there are fundamentalists everywhere, but I don't know what the percentages are like in comparison, nor how vocal they are. An interesting question, though.

Yeah. When the last PM started to advance SSM legislation, the Archbishop of Ottawa threw a little hissy fit and threatened to excommunicate him.

This being Canada, His Grace was laughed off the stage, pretty much.

The religious fundamentalists in the United States are significantly more influential than most other places, as I understand it. (I've talked to a number of Europeans who are baffled by it.)

My pet silly theory is that the European nations punted their people who were inclined to such behaviours to North America, thereby causing the resulting nation to suffer the logical results of a population significantly descended from religious loonies.

It seems that in a lot of countries (at least the European ones), religion is a personal thing. Even in countries like Sweden which recently have had (or still have) a state church, the church doesn't seem to have as much influence on the government.