Coming to Canada: Gay and Lesbian Marriage
The government sanctions Church marriages, the Church sanctions gay and lesbian marriages
by Deborah Levinson
The Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto (MCC Toronto) which is part of the United States based Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), will begin performing legal same-sex marriages in January 2001.
At an MCC Toronto church service held on December 3, 2000, Senior Pastor Rev. Brent Hawkes made the following announcement:
"MCC Toronto is proud to announce that beginning in January 2001 we will be issuing marriage licenses for same sex weddings. Until now, we felt restricted from acting on our beliefs by what we thought was a legal impediment regarding same sex weddings. Being called by God to marry same sex couples, we recently sought legal advice and as a result, we have changed our position on the legality of same sex marriages. In keeping with the ancient Christian tradition of banns of marriage we will now be issuing marriage licenses for same sex weddings. We believe we will be the first to issue these licenses anywhere in the world. As you may know, the issue of same sex marriage is currently before the courts and we are seeking to participate in those court proceedings and we have retained Douglas Elliott, of Elliott and Kim to act on our behalf."
Under current Ontario law, Section 5 of the Ontario Marriage Act, couples who wish to marry can either obtain a license from a local municipal clerk or they can have banns published in a church they regularly attend. Pursuant to that law Mr. Elliott has advised the church that it has the authority to follow ancient Christian tradition of publication of banns of marriage instead of requiring couples to obtain a marriage license. To date the municipal clerks in Ontario have declined to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and while this refusal is the subject of a current court case in the Ontario Divisional Court, there seems to be no legal bar to using this alternative method.
To date, no church has offered to marry same-sex couples by publishing banns of marriage. Historically, banns of marriage consist of a verbal announcement of the couple's intent to marry during a church service in accordance with that church's practice. Generally this has been each Sunday for three consecutive Sundays preceding the wedding. The church then issues the marriage certificate following the wedding ceremony.
So far Rev. Hawkes is very pleased with the response to the announcement, "We were delighted with the overwhelming response of our congregation and several couples have already expressed interest in being married in our church."
We'll have to watch this scenario play out. While Canada has been very progressive on the issues of equal rights for gays and lesbians there will no doubt be attempts to bar gays and lesbians from this marriage method.
In Pride,
Deborah
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