The influence of traditional Christian views about marriage began to erode at the same time as the liberalization of laws regulating homosexual acts. Divorce, officially forbidden in both the Catholic and Anglican churches, became more freely available under the law. In the 1970’s, the law began to recognize the rights and obligations of so-called “common law” heterosexual couples. These were unmarried heterosexual couples who were previously referred to as living “without benefit of clergy”, or “living in sin.” Despite the fact that such relationships are officially sinful according to the official dogma of many Christian churches, there seems to be widespread support for this recognition. There has been no great outcry of opposition about legal recognition of common law heterosexual unions from those who accuse our community of undermining marriage. The Supreme Court in Miron v. Trudel[23] has confirmed that under section 15(1) of the Charter, legal distinctions made between married and unmarried heterosexual couples are likely to be invalid.

In addition, legal recognition has been increasingly extended to homosexual relationships, first through court decisions beginning with Veysey v. Canada[24] and culminating in M.v. H.[25] Although theoretically these relationships are no more or less sinful than unmarried heterosexual relationships, they have drawn more criticism from conservative Christians.