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They already had civil partnerships, but our mates across the pond are ready to leave the U.S. in the cultural dust again.
The British government is expected to announce full marriage equality for gays and lesbians under reforms to marriage laws expected to be announced later this week by the Liberal Democrat equality minister, Lynne Featherstone.The announcement will also include the time table for civil partnerships to be held in religious buildings. The reported move will end the final major legal discrimination against gays and lesbians in Britain.
The reaction from faith groups:
The Quakers and Liberal Judaism have already stated that they wish to conduct same sex marriages.Although the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, gave the reports a guarded welcome telling the BBC that he “believes in a liberal democracy, and actually wants equality with everybody,” the Church of England does not support the introduction of gay marriages or civil partnerships being held in churches. A spokesman said: “Given the Church’s view on the nature of marriage, the House of Bishops has consistently been clear that the Church of England should not provide services of blessing for those who register civil partnerships.”
The spokesman said the change will “lead to inconsistencies with civil marriage, have unexplored impacts, and lead to confusion, with a number of difficult and unintended consequences for churches and faiths”.
“Any change could therefore only be brought after proper and careful consideration of all the issues involved, to ensure that the intended freedom for all denominations over these matters is genuinely secured.”
The Catholic Church and those representing the Muslim faith are also opposed to gay marriage and holding religious civil partnerships.
11 Comments
Okwe have seen what happens over there, will happen here, the Question is how long will it take… At this rate by the time we get Marriage Equality here in the US. there will be people on the moon..
Heck, people will be having GRANDKIDS on MARS!!
Re:The US are always 10-20 years behind the rest of the civilized world
“You can always count on America to do the right thing, after it has exhausted all the other possibilities.”
– Winston Churchill
Oddly enoughThe Conservatives are in charge (in coalition) over there. In recent years they have majorly scaled back on their homophobia. If marriage equality goes through with a Conservative PM in charge, that will say even more about how backwards we are.
One thing the US is ahead of the UK inBeing in an existing marriage is irrelevant to whether a trans person can get their birth certificate changed in the USA. You either can (regardless of marital status) or can’t (in 3 states, regardless of marital status).
In the UK, for a married trans person to change documentation requires divorce, to prevent a “same sex marriage”. Even if they are UK expatriates living overseas, in a place where same-sex marriages are allowed, or one partner changing sex is not grounds for divorce, or divorce itself is impossible. The exception is if they are already in a same-sex marriage, where they must formally declare that they are actually unmarried, as current UK law does not recognise same-sex marriage.
There appear to be no plans to change the law in this area in the UK. The proposed changes appear to only allow gay marriages, not those that become same-sex via transition.
Moreover, once gay marriages are recognised, those trans people in gay marriages overseas will have to divorce too, rather than declare they’re unmarried.
Until we get the exact details, we can’t be certain that this is the case; but so far Stonewall (the UK GLB organisation that speaks for T’s) has expressed no interest in the issue.
Government undecidedThis appears to be a trial balloon rather than a leak of actual government policy. Leaked that is merely as a means of gauging public opinion.
I suspect the trail went well – bitter hate and opposition from the churches being less than might have been expected, less than in previous years.
Stonewall…. . . has explicitly declared itself to be an exclusively GLB organization; when it was pointed out that one of the people nominated for one of their annual awards was a rabid transphobe, they flatly responded, “That’s not our issue so we don’t care how transphobic she is.”
Color me confused.As usual, the argument sounds like what is being proposed is mandating that churches perform same-sex marriages rather than simply allowing them to do so if they choose.
In the US, I know that’s always BS. But I don’t know about the UK.
I really don’t understand the issue. I can’t believe that civil law requires a church to perform a blessing of a couple in violation of their own religious standards for a religious marriage within their franchise, regardless of the legality of the civil contract.
Catholic churches can’t be being required to remarry divorced people, and no church can be being required to perform weddings for people not of their faith – avowed Satanists can’t be successfully demanding Church of England weddings in church, can they?
The whole question of churches as employers or service providers being required to respect the civil marriages of couples they have those relationships with is a different matter, but what’s with the hoo-haw over allowing church weddings?
Religious denominations not compelled to marry same-sex couplesColor me Confused….from what I know, any same-sex marriage bill will not mandate a religious denomination to conduct or recognize a same-sex marriage in the UK once the law is passed. I agree with it. StonewallUK has made that quite clear and so have some politicians in government there. There are fewer religious marriages performed in the UK than there are in the U.S. so civil marriage will be far more popular for both orientations. Roughly 6% of the British public worships compared to the U.S. and church attendance in the UK is at an all time low, lower than in most countries. Its really not a religious society either, nor does it tolerate religious denominations to influence the outcome of legislation. There are no referenda on social issues so when marriage equality passes, it can’t be overturned anywhere in the UK. Its amazing, in the majority of those countries where same-sex marriage is legal, there is state religion, yet we have no state religion and no marriage equality at the federal level.
Trans rights in Ireland are still being codifiedwith regard to the need (or hopefully not) to divorce prior to recognition in the trans person’s new gender. After Dr Lydia Foy won her battle last year(or at least the Irish government declined to fight further against a European Court ruling), a commission has been interviewing the relevant interested parties prior to the Gender Recognition Act coming into force.
My MTF spouse, as a long-standing transactivist, was interviewed along with other members of the TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) and other bodies. She is due for surgery this year and after a long and hard struggle, we came to the realisation that we still are in love and that we do not want to be divorced, either voluntarily or forcibly. She put that argument before the commission, invoking the Irish Constitution with its strong emphasis on the rights of the family (albeit heterosexual). She argued against using the UK or other countries as models, saying “This is the opportunity to correct everyone else’s shortcomings.” The commission were apparently pleased to hear her views and seemed extremely sympathetic and supportive, but with the General Election now looming, we still don’t know whether they have taken her evidence on board.
More on marriage equality in the UKI just learned from Pinknews.co.uk that it looks as though the conservative coalition government of the UK is moving forward on consultation for full marriage equality. Prime Minister David Cameron has at last acknowledged that there is an imbalance between civil partnerships and civil marriages. This is huge!