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Canada Court Redefines Marriage to Include Gays
2 hours, 48 minutes ago

OTTAWA (Reuters) - An Ontario court set aside the heterosexual definition of marriage on Tuesday with immediate effect and ordered the Toronto city clerk to issue marriage licenses to several gay couples who had applied for them.

The decision was one of three decisions expected this year by appeals courts in provinces across the country, and it was not clear whether the federal government would appeal it or ask for a stay of the decision.

A decision in May by a British Columbia appeals court had given the federal government until July 2004 to change its law to include homosexual marriages, and Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said he was mulling an appeal.

But the Ontario court ruled that to wait would deny the couples their constitutional rights, and it redefined the common law definition of marriage as "the voluntary union for life of two persons to the exclusion of all others."

In so doing it substituted "two persons" for "one man and one woman."

The three-person court ruled that the law limiting marriage to heterosexuals violated the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, part of the Canadian Constitution.

"The common law definition of marriage is inconsistent with the Charter to the extent that it excludes same-sex couples," the court ruled.

Cauchon had asked the House of Commons justice committee to conduct hearings across the country on what should be done about the definition of marriage, and the committee is currently deliberating possible recommendations.

Committee member Vic Toews of the opposition Canadian Alliance, an opponent of gay marriage, asked Cauchon last week to launch an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court so that the lower courts do not end up preempting what he said was an issue for Parliament to decide.