OUR LATEST ISSUE
SITE SEARCH
Gay News: The UK's stance on gay marriage is to be challenged today in the European Court of Human Rights.
By: Nigel Robinson
Existing law is "onnoxious"
Existing law is "onnoxious"
Gay marriage goes before Human Rights Court
21 December 2010
The Equal Love campaign is fighting for the right of gay couples to be married, and for heterosexual couples to enter into civil partnerships
Currently in the UK, same-sex couples can enter into civil partnerships but are not allowed to marry. Straight couples may marry but are not permitted civil partnerships.
Today eight couples – four gay and four straight – will file a case with the European Court of Human Rights arguing that the ban contravenes the Human Rights Act which gives the right to marry and the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.,
Over the past two months, the four gay couples have been denied marriage licences at registrar offices in Greenwich, Northampton and Petersfield. The heterosexual couples were refused civil partnerships in Aldershot, Bristol, Camden and Islington.
Gay Rights activist Peter Tatchell, who is co-ordinating the campaign, said that many straight couples did not like the “patriarchal history” of marriage.
He went on to say that some gay couples would like to get married as for them marriage is universally recognised as a sign of love and commitment.
“Banning black couples from getting married would provoke uproar,” he said. “The prohibition on gay marriages should arouse similar outrage.
“The ban on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships is a form of legal sexual apartheid – one law for gay couples and another law for heterosexual partners.
“In a democratic society we should all be equal before the law.”
Professor Robert Wintemute of the School of Law at Kings College, London, and who is acting as Equal Love’s legal advisor said that the ban was “discriminatory and obnoxious”.
“It’s like having separate drinking fountains or beaches for different racial groups, even though the water is the same.
“The only function of the twin bans is to mark lesbian and gay people as socially and legally inferior to heterosexual people.”
For more information visit the Equal Love website
