Bound by law

FOUR days after the people of 11 American states, including Montana and North Dakota, voted (alongside their presidential ballot) in favour of banning gay marriage in the constitution, just across the Canadian border two women, Erin Scriven and Lisa Stumborg, said their vows in a church in Saskatoon, in the province of Saskatchewan. Just the previous day a family court judge, Donna Wilson, had issued a decision legalising same-sex marriages in the province.

Her ruling was part of an accelerating trend. Since an Ontario court ruled same-sex marriages legal in June 2003, courts in five other provinces and in the Yukon territory have followed suit, three of them in the last two months. There are more to come. Last week in Newfoundland and Labrador province, two couples began court action under the equality clause in the federal constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Governments in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have so far stood back and argued that it is not their affair because the capacity to marry (though not the ceremony itself) falls under federal jurisdiction. Other provincial governments have not opposed the court actions, for the same reason.