Toronto starts issuing gay marriage licences

TORONTO: Canada’s largest city, Toronto, decided yesterday to start issuing marriage licences to gay couples after an Ontario court set aside the heterosexual definition of marriage as unconstitutional.

What would be Canada’s first legal gay marriage ceremony after the decision was immediately scheduled for yesterday afternoon between two men who had been among those who had brought the legal case. And retroactively the court decision also recognised two other gay marriage ceremonies that had taken place in Toronto in 2001, declaring those unions valid. “They’re married, as effective today,” said Joanna Radbord, a lawyer for some of the couples. The federal government was putting up no immediate roadblock. Mike Murphy, a spokesman for federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, said: “We’re examining the ruling...We have to take some time to review it.” The three-person Ontario court ruled that the federal law limiting marriage to heterosexuals violated the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, part of the Canadian Constitution.