A coalition of Canadian conservative and evangelical groups on Tuesday targeted 30 members of Parliament for prayer and for electoral defeat if they do not vote to uphold heterosexual-only marriage.

In a fresh sign of the fierce battle in Canada over marriage, the groups selected legislators or cabinet members who either were particularly active in pushing for gay marriage or who had won by a slim margin in the 2000 election.

"By desecrating the sacred institution of marriage and breaching trust, these members risk losing those narrow margins of victory," Charles McVety, president of the Toronto-based Canada Christian College, told a news conference.

In response to two provincial appeals court decisions, the Liberal federal government drafted legislation over the summer to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions.

It was supposed to have been an easy measure to win public approval, but it has turned into an issue that has dominated political discussion over the summer and could well turn into a hot-button issue in federal elections expected next year.

Some legislators report having received thousands of letters, e-mails and phone calls on this issue.

"If any good has come out of this exercise, it is that you have awakened a giant that will not go back to sleep," Rondo Thomas, director of the Evangelical Association, a group of about 600 pastors, said in a message to cabinet.

All but three of the 30 legislators on the list are from the governing Liberal Party, and 22 of them are from Ontario, where the Liberals hold most of their seats and where they are seen to be most vulnerable to electoral losses.

The coalition is helping organize prayer rallies outside the offices of all 301 members of Parliament this Sunday, designed partly to send a political message, but they will concentrate on organizing outside the offices of the 30 targeted legislators.

Parliament voted overwhelmingly in 1999 to maintain the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman "to the exclusion of all others."

The first vote in connection with the issue since the government decided it would try to reverse this is expected to come in late September.

That will be on a motion by the opposition Canadian Alliance, which intends to reintroduce the same 1999 language and will then be able to target legislators who have changed their positions.

But it will not be binding. Under the cabinet's plan, Parliament will eventually vote on a government bill that would formally change the definition, but that might not come to the floor for one or two years.

In the mean time, gay marriage is currently allowed in Ontario and British Columbia because of the provincial court decisions, but is banned elsewhere.

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