IAN W Thomson tells us that civil partnerships should be open to all (Letters, June 29). In fact, there is no sensible reason for mixed-sex couples to seek a civil partnership.
Some of them say marriage is patriarchal: a woman being given by one man to another, and so on. But none of that is true of marriage as specified by modern marriage law.
To refuse to get married because of what marriage used to be like is comparable to refusing to go to university because universities didn’t admit women once upon a time. It really isn’t the proper business of government to set up institutions simply to save people from false associations in their minds.
Some of them say that marriage is essentially religious – all that “Whom God hath joined … ” stuff. That, too, is false. Civil marriage is not carried out under some sort of franchise agreement with the Pope and the Moderator. God is never mentioned.
So non-religious is civil marriage that the registrar refused to allow my niece to exit from her civil marriage ceremony to the Hallelujah! Chorus.
Some people, including one of the appellants in the recent Supreme Court case, claim that getting married is expensive. That, too, is false. People entering into a civil marriage do not have to have a hen party in Prague, eight bridesmaids in matching gowns, a swanky reception or cascades of doves at the magic moment. All that is a wedding, not getting married.
You can get married by going before a registrar with a couple of witnesses and a small fee, just like entering into a civil partnership.
Further, civil partnerships are tainted by homophobia. They were set up alongside marriage precisely because some people claimed that admitting same-sex couples to marriage would pollute marriage. It is distasteful, to say the least, for mixed-sex couples to want to take over civil partnerships.
Paul Brownsey,
19 Larchfield Road,
Bearsden.
THE Supreme Court judgment that ruled that a heterosexual couple had the right to enter into a civil partnership instead of a marriage could lead to a change in the law.
There are no real legal differences between marriage and a civil partnership; in the eyes of the law an individual has the same rights and responsibilities following separation, a breakdown of the relationship or upon death. However, the Civil Partnership Act of 2004 defines them as a “relationship between two people of the same sex”. This means that heterosexual couples cannot enter into a civil partnership and so this law is discriminatory in that sense.
This ruling from the Supreme Court, which was unanimous, could lead to greater equality for heterosexual couples when it comes to choosing how they want to formalise their relationship.
The couple who successfully challenged the law, which was found to contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, took issue with some of the ideological undertones of marriage and there will be many others of the same view.
The judgment applies only in England and Wales but it is likely to increase pressure on both the Scottish and UK governments to implement change. More than 130,000 people have signed an online petition in support of civil partnerships for all and this high-profile case will intensify calls for everyone to have this option.
Sarah Hay, Solicitor,
Watermans Legal, 5A Giles Street,
Leith, Edinburgh.
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