Marriage equality?
Symon Hill surveys the current situation in Britain and considers the experience of some same-sex couples
I was really excited when the law changed,’ says Rachel Xerri. ‘I thought it would allow us to register a same-sex partnership in a Quaker Meeting house’. Then things began to go wrong.
Rachel and her partner Sally Brooks are planning a Quaker wedding at Bournville Meeting house in Birmingham. As same-sex marriage is not recognised in law, a civil partnership will be required to give their relationship legal status. The situation seemed to get easier in December, when the law changed to allow civil partnership ceremonies in places of worship.
Rachel says she was ‘delighted’. But she soon received a call from her Meeting’s registering officer. He had discovered that to host a civil partnership, they would need to register with the local authority and undergo a health and safety check. The total cost was around £3,000. The Meeting could not afford it. Nor did Rachel and Sally expect them to try.
‘I was devastated,’ says Rachel. Sally felt ‘real anger and an unspeakable sense of injustice’. She says: ‘A piece of legislation had been put in place just for show’.
Finding a way
Creative ways around the restrictions may still be found. There has been talk of Meetings in the same area sharing the cost of registering one of their Meeting houses for civil partnerships. This would still leave same-sex couples with fewer choices than others. Furthermore, the new law applies only to England and Wales.
There is nothing to stop a same-sex couple from holding a religious wedding – but the law will not recognise them as married. Others hold a religious blessing shortly after their civil partnership. This will be the case for Holly McGuigan and George Walsh, who will marry at Glasgow’s Anglican Cathedral in June. In the eyes of some, a same-sex partnership ceremony in a cathedral is a sign that things have gone too far. For others, the fact that they cannot have a legally recognised marriage in a cathedral is a reminder they have not gone far enough.
Background
Civil partnerships were introduced in 2005 and gave same-sex couples most of the same rights as married mixed-sex couples. For many gay and bisexual people, the key aspect missing from the Civil Partnerships Act was the right to the word ‘marriage’. For others, it was the ban on religious elements in partnership ceremonies. Attempts to change the law have focused on one or both of these issues.
‘Marriage is a binding commitment in the presence of God,’ says Chris Campbell, an elder at Maidenhead United Reformed Church (URC), who married his Catholic boyfriend last year. Friends helped them put together a Christian wedding. A civil registrar later turned up and took them through a legal ceremony. If Chris had married a woman, only one ceremony would have been necessary.
‘God has been at the heart of our relationship,’ he explained, ‘it seems bizarre for the law to insist that religion should play no part in our marriage’.
The URC will consider its view on same-sex marriage at its next annual assembly. Over 120 Anglican clergy have signed a letter challenging the Church of England’s decision to rule out civil partnerships on its premises. A number of Baptist ministers have called on the Baptist Union to let them to make up their own minds.
The Quaker position
At least three same-sex couples have been married with Quaker marriage procedure since British Friends resolved to back same-sex marriage in 2009. The Yearly Meeting of Quakers in Britain felt led by God to celebrate same-sex marriage in ‘exactly the same way’ as mixed-sex marriage.
Despite the word ‘exactly’, British Friends stopped short of defying the law. The revised wording of Quaker faith & practice requires same-sex couples to go through a civil partnership ceremony before their Quaker wedding.
Some have gone further. New Unity Chapel, a Unitarian church in London, resolved in 2007 to no longer carry out legally recognised marriages for mixed-sex couples – until they are allowed to do so for same-sex couples. ‘We’re simply not going to create second-class citizens in our congregation,’ explains the minister, Andy Pakula.
Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting and most senior staff member of British Quakers, is due to meet with Unitarian and Liberal Jewish leaders shortly. They will discuss the next steps in the campaign for marriage equality.
Writing to Quaker registering officers last month, assistant recording clerk Michael Hutchinson encouraged them not to get too bogged down in detail. ‘It is worth holding in mind why we are doing all this,’ he wrote. ‘It reflects our religious principles… and it is a significant testimony to our understanding of equality’.
The future focus
The focus for many campaigners has shifted to Scotland. Alex Salmond’s government appears to be moving relatively quickly towards change, despite opposition from Catholic and Presbyterian leaders. Quakers in Scotland have formally endorsed the Scottish Marriage Equality Campaign.
David Cameron has promised same-sex civil marriage in England and Wales by 2015, although religious elements will be ruled out. The Equal Love campaign has called on him to go further. They want every couple to be offered a choice between marriage and civil partnership.
Same-sex couples are not the only ones who want a change in the law. Some religious groups have the right to register marriages while others do not. Transgender people want to overturn a law that automatically dissolves a marriage if one of the partners changes gender. There have been calls for legal recognition of marriages involving more than two people. Meanwhile, anarchists have argued that personal relationships are no business of the state and that marriage should be a purely personal matter without legal implications.
Such changes may seem a long way off given the opposition to same-sex marriage. The archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has accused the prime minister of acting ‘like a dictator’ by trying to ‘redefine’ marriage.
‘Every word that we use changes over time,’ insists Andy Pakula in response. ‘What we meant by marriage a thousand years ago is something very different from the way we meant it 500 years ago, which is something very different from what we mean by marriage now.’
What it all boils down to
Sally Brooks says that the human element of the issue is often missed in the debate about law and ethics. ‘It’s so often debated as a point of philosophy,’ she says, ‘I don’t think that’s a bad thing but sometimes we forget that what it’s really about is two people who love each other and want to spend their lives together’.
She was drawn to Friends after the church of her youth rejected her sexuality. ‘I try to take my guidance from the teachings of Jesus,’ she says. ‘He treated people all as equal and that’s a good enough example for me’.
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