A different-sex couple married in Canada would have automatically been deemed fully married in the UK as soon as they stepped ashore. It was only with the introduction of Civil Partnerships legislation into the UK in December 2005 that Kitzinger and Wilkinson's relationship was recognised at all in UK law.

But, they were told that their legal Canadian marriage had been "downgraded" (as their lawyers put it) to a Civil Partnership. Kitzinger and Wilkinson were told, effectively, that they were merely "shmarried".

With the support of human rights group Liberty they challenged this discriminatory distortion of nomenclature. They argued that the practice of treating same-sex couples differently from different-sex couples in this way breached their human rights.

"it is simply not acceptable to be asked to pretend that this marriage is a civil partnership. While marriage remains open to heterosexual couples only, offering the "consolation prize" of a civil partnership to lesbians and gay men is offensive and demeaning."
 -- Sue Wilkinson, in her application seeking a declaration as to her marital status (link)

On 31 July 2006, Judge Mark Potter, rejected the claim. He said the couple could not be considered a married couple, but only a Civil Partnership, because "the majority of people, or at least of governments", regard marriage as:

"a means not only of encouraging monogamy but also the procreation of children and their development and nurture in a family unit (or "nuclear family") in which both maternal and paternal influences are available"
-- Judge Mark Potters "Justification" (link)

Should other couples who cannot or do not want children be barred from marriage?

He went on to provide a completely circular justification, defining marriage as being "between a man and a woman" and using this as a reason not to apply the law to homosexual couples.

Responding to the dismissal of their case, Kitzinger and Wilkinson said:

Denying our marriage does nothing to protect heterosexual marriage. It simply upholds discrimination and inequality. It sends the inescapable message that lesbian and gay relationships are inferior to heterosexual ones.
-- Kitzinger and Wilkinson, Statement in response (link)