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International News Report
 A second Canadian province legalized full same-sex marriage July 8.
British Columbia's Court of Appeal followed in the footsteps of
Ontario's Court of Appeal which forced legalization of same-sex marriage
on June 10.
Less than an hour after the new ruling, Tom Graff and Anthony Porcino were married at Vancouver's B.C. Law Courts building by United Church minister Tim Stevenson, a gay member of the Vancouver City Council. Both provinces' highest courts declared the federal government's opposite-sex definition of marriage unconstitutional. Following the Ontario ruling, the federal government announced its agreement with the decision and began the process of formally legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. In the meantime, hundreds of same-sex couples already have married in Ontario and now weddings are occurring in British Columbia as well. Neither province has a residency requirement for marriage. Foreign same-sex couples can buy a license and get married the same day. The B.C. Court of Appeal initially struck down the federal marriage definition on May 1 but suspended its ruling until July 2004 to give legislators time to rework the marriage laws. Subsequently, Ontario's Court of Appeal struck down the same definition but did not include a grace period. In light of the Ontario ruling, the B.C. court decided to close the gap, thereby legalizing same-sex marriage in the province instantly. The court stated: "Any further delay ... will result in an unequal application of the law as between Ontario and British Columbia, with same-sex couples being denied the right to marry in British Columbia until July 12, 2004, while same-sex couples in Ontario may marry as and when they choose to do so. [I]t is appropriate to ... lift the suspension of remedies, with the result that the declaratory relief and the reformulation of the common-law definition of marriage as 'the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others' will take immediate effect." |