MONTREAL — British Columbia joined Ontario Tuesday in legalizing same-sex marriage, with the Court of Appeal in Canada's westernmost province ruling that gays and lesbians have an immediate right to tie the wedding knot.
The three-judge panel ordered the "reformulation of the common law definition" of marriage to declare it a union of any two individuals, regardless of gender. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, bowing to pressure from the liberal-leaning top courts, last month pledged to make gay and lesbian marriage the law of the land.
The British Columbia decision comes as religious conservatives in Canada, far less cohesive than in the United States, launched a battle to preserve the 137-year-old legal definition of marriage in the country as the "union of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others."
A coalition of church groups including evangelical Protestants, Roman Catholics and Muslims on Monday announced a Supreme Court challenge to the provincial court rulings that have made Canada all but certain to become the third nation in the world to fully sanction gay and lesbian marriage, after the Netherlands and Belgium.
Ironically, opposition to the legalization of gay marriage in Canada has been most thunderous among American conservative groups, with Canada's religious right barely heard on the national level until this week.