Civil partnership ban to be lifted
Religious buildings to be allowed to host same-sex civil partnerships from 5 December
The ban on same-sex civil partnerships taking place in religious buildings will be lifted in England and Wales on 5 December. The change in the law will not at this stage extend to allowing same-sex couples to use the word ‘marriage’. Quaker Meetings are therefore expected to host a civil partnership – for legal recognition – followed by a Quaker Meeting for Worship for Marriage. Friends have been calling for the change to be implemented since parliament voted in favour of it as part of the Equality Act in April 2010. The act emphasises that the provision is voluntary and that no faith group will be forced to host ceremonies they do not believe in.
The change does not apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Scottish government is planning to introduce marriage equality for same-sex couples. The UK government recently promised same-sex civil marriage in England and Wales by 2015.
Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Jews are expected to host civil partnerships almost immediately. The United Reformed Church is due to debate the issue at its General Assembly next year. There is a campaign within the Baptist Union of Great Britain for individual Baptist churches to be allowed to make their own decisions on the issue.
The Church of England, Methodist Church and Roman Catholic Church have said they do not plan to host civil partnerships.
The new provision was criticised by Christian Concern, who described it as ‘part of a wider, radical social and political agenda to re-define marriage and force this re-definition on everybody’. At the other end of the spectrum, the Equal Love campaign described the change as ‘limited and inconsistent’ and argued that faith groups should be allowed to host same-sex marriages if they wished.
