Peter and Murray Corren

Peter Corren (born Cook; died 30 December 2009) and Murray Corren (born Warren) – Corren is a combination of their former names – are LGBT-rights activists from Vancouver, British Columbia whose complaint before British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal led to an agreement whereby the provincial Ministry of Education would consult them on how gays are presented in the school curriculum. Peter Corren died of cancer on 30 December 2009.

Background

The Correns, a same-sex couple with one adopted son, are long-time activists for gay rights who have been involved in several high-profile cases. They were among the first gay couples to foster and adopt children in Canada. In the late 1990s, Murray Warren, a Coquitlam schoolteacher, was one of the petitioners in Chamberlain v. Surrey School District, a case that dealt with the Surrey School Board's refusal to approve as learning resources several children's books featuring same-sex parents.

They also were petitioners in an early same-sex marriage case that lifted the ban on same-sex marriage in British Columbia.

They were one of the first same-sex couples to marry in Canada.

Human rights complaint

In 1997, Cook and Warren complained to the BC Human Rights Tribunal that public schools in British Columbia discriminated against gays by failing to include information about them in curricula, and that the lack of such representation amounted to systemic discrimination. The Tribunal accepted their case, but as the hearing approached in 2006, the provincial government negotiated a settlement with the Correns by which the province committed itself to review the inclusivity of school curricula and would introduce a new elective course on social justice that would include sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and gender issues.