Murray Corren of Vancouver recalls precisely when his spouse, Peter, entered his life nearly 37 years ago. The date was July 11, 1971.

The two men met at a bar in London and have been together ever since. They merged their last names, Cook and Warren, to Corren.

They adopted a teenage son together, the first such adoption by a same-sex couple in British Columbia. And after it became legal to do so, they married in 2004.

"Our family is as ordinary as many others," Mr. Corren said. "Just as any couple, we argue about things, about very trivial things and sometimes about perhaps a bit more important things. But by and large, we get along really well and have done so all these years."