Stonewall Push For Amendment To Allow Civil Partnerships In Church

Stonewall, the gay rights charity, has announced that it is seeking to add an amendment to the Equality Bill that would allow same sex couples to have their civil partnership ceremonies within religious buildings.

Acting to give ministers of religion the option to preside over ceremonies, the amendment wouldn’t however make it complusory to do so, but would act to lift the ban that was placed on having civil partnership ceremonies  in religious buildings in the 2005 civil partnership legislation.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, said that the charity was already working alongside the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) and the Metropolitan Community Church to get the amendment tabled, and is hopeful that it will be met with support from other faiths, such as the Quakers who have been very positive in their support for gay rights, going as far as to vote to hold gay marriages as opposed to civil partnerships.

Speaking to the Pink News, Summerskill said he was optimistic about the chances of getting the amendment tabled, and though he recognised there were likely to be issues in the House of Lords, he said “We are very clear that this is an issue of religious freedom and if faiths want to celebrate the ceremonies of two men or two women, it’s not for someone else to say you can’t do that.”

Highlighting he wasn’t pushing for faiths to be forced into holding civil partnerships now, Summerskill did indicate that he was hopefully that this would happen in the next couple of decades, attributing much of the need for the amendment to be done to the fact that the original prohibition rather naively believed that same sex couples wouldn’t be religious.  Reverend Sharon Ferguson of the LGCM also reinforced this argument stating “As far as I know, civil partnerships are really good in that they give us legal protection. But they do not give equality. Lesbian and gay people can only have a civil ceremony but heterosexual people have the choice.

“I’m not bothered about calling civil partnerships marriage – that’s just semantics. I want to see equality in that any body registered and licenced to conduct a marriage can also conduct a civil partnership. And any building registered to conduct a marriage can also conducted a civil partnership.”

The amendment is likely to be made when the bill is moved before the House of Lords which could happen either before or after Christmas.

Photo by Charlie Dave.