More gay/lesbian marriage stuff

[andrewducker]

A lesbian couple have launched a High Court test case in an attempt to win legal recognition in Britain for same-sex marriages. 

The couple, who are British and live in Yorkshire, are seeking a legal declaration of the validity of their Canadian marriage in the UK. Papers have been lodged at the Family Division of the High Court in London and the case is expected to be heard early next year.

The two say that under new legislation, which comes into force in December, they will only be given "second-class status". They will be able to register their relationship under the new Civil Partnership Act as a "civil partnership" and receive many of the legal benefits available to heterosexual married couples. But Ms Kitzinger and Ms Wilkinson, both university professors, believe civil partnership to be both "symbolically and practically a lesser substitute".

The court will be asked to recognise their overseas marriage in the same way that it would recognise that of a heterosexual couple.

They will argue that failure to do so would constitute a breach of their human rights to privacy and family life and their right to marry, and is discriminatory on the basis of their sexuality.

From here.

This will be interesting.  I was surprised when the government decided to bring in civil partnerships rather than same-sex marriages, and I think it's a kludgey solution.  Hopefully this will cause a bit of a rethink, and with a little rewording we'll have gay marriages instead.

Comments

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

I wasn't surprised at all - the government did it to avoid the wrath of the Christian lobby.

Hopefully this will cause a bit of a rethink, and with a little rewording we'll have gay marriages instead.

Well, I hope not until after I've got my civil partnership, because I don't want to get married.

[andrewducker]

Of course, if they change civil partnerships to marriages afterwards, you might find that you actually _are_ married, after the fact :->

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's against human rights law to make someone party to a contract that they never entered. I do think the two are significantly different - not in legal ramifications, which are designed to be pretty much the same, but in social ones.

Though marriage would make the child stuff much easier.

[andrewducker]

Well, (and I'm not anything like a lawyer), if they aren't changing the legal ramfications of the contract, just the name it's called, then it _might_ be legal.

Or then again, it might not. It's a tricky one, which will undoubtably be argued over by finer minds than me.

You might be interested, by the way, in this: http://www.livejournal.com/~andrewducker/969173.html

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Just taunt me with your ability to get a civil partnership, why don't you?

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

My apologies. Would be much more sensible to open civil partnership to everyone, and de-recognise marriage, in my opinion.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

I always thought the UK take on gay marriages was absurd.

They've refused to recognise them for years (while they've been legal in Holland, for example), while at the same time recognising polygamous marriages which have taken place abroad, even though polygamous marriage is not legal here.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Absurd but quite in keeping with the keeping-on-the-right-side-of-the-churches obsession of the Blair government. The stated reason for forcing married couples to divorce if one is transsexual and wants a new birth certificate is that it would "open the door to gay marriage", and the churches would have said no to gender recognition. Only they mostly said no anyway.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Argh! That is truly abominable.

I hope it's being challenged in Europe though? Forcing someone to divorce must be a human rights issue, surely?

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Hmm, why are people so keen on marriage anyway? I've never been best chuffed at the legal and financial implications (which I really didn't think about enough).