Section 1 sets out the short title of the Act.

Section 2 legislates the legal capacity for two persons of the same sex to marry civilly.

Section 3 recognizes that religious officials are already protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms from being compelled to perform marriages that would be contrary to their religious beliefs, as confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in its opinion on the marriage Reference.

Editorial Comment: The Reference from the Supreme Court on Marriage is a non-binding opinion and does not protect anyone or anything. Furthermore the Charter guarantees respecting religious freedoms, have been ignored by Courts in cases dealing with conflicting rights of homosexual litigants versus religious views. It would appear that this section is written in the vaguest of possible terms.

Section 4 clarifies that civil marriages between same-sex couples cannot be ruled by the courts to be void or voidable only because the couple are of the same sex, overruling existing common law. (

Editorial Comment: This section would appear to infringe on the Provincial jurisdiction of marriage solemization, which gives Provincial Governments to legal right to regulate solemnization of marriage, and curtails the grounds for an invocation of section 33 of the Charter, the Notwithstanding Clause. The section removes a Provincial Court's capacity to rule on the legality of a homosexual marriage guaranteed under the Constitution Act.