This article explores the legal and discursive impact of R. v. Vriend (1998), the Canadian Supreme Court's first unequivocal pro-gay rights ruling. While not questioning Vriend as a victory, it engages in a critical interrogation of the Court's reasoning. Deploying the deconstructive insights of queer theory, the article reveals the role of law in producing the rigidly demarcated category “gay/lesbian” and speculates on its enduring discursive legacy. Through a reliance on fixed sexual identity categories, the liberal legal framing of “sexual orientation” in Vriend works to reinforce normative heterosexuality and to privilege those claims that reflect the legal refraction of anti-homophobic struggles as pleas for minority rights. Arguing that the insights of queer theory/politics can and should be brought into a productive relationship with law, the article concludes with some thoughts on the project of “queering law.”