www.ambiente.us FEBRUARY | FEBRERO 2011
Equal Love case filed to European Court
by David Watters
Legal bid for gay marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships
If we got married we would be colluding with the segregation that exists in
matrimonial law between gay civil partnerships and straight civil marriages. We
don't want to take advantage of civil marriage when it is an option that is denied to
our lesbian and gay friends.
- Katherine Doyle (Equal Love Campaigner)
Following on from our article in last month’s AMBIENTE Magazine, we bring you
news that the UK Equal Love Campaign, coordinated by human rights activist
Peter Tatchell, has progressed significantly with the historic filing of a legal
application to the European Court of Human Rights.
The ECHR application was announced on 2 February 2011 at an Equal Love
briefing in Committee Room 17 of the entirely apt and austere House of
Commons, London.
The legal application was then simultaneously posted and faxed to the
European Court in Strasbourg.
Also in attendance were several of the sixteen plaintiffs, including the lead
same-sex couple, Rev Sharon Ferguson and her partner Franka Strietzel, and the
lead heterosexual couple, Tom Freeman and his partner Katherine Doyle.
Hosting the briefing, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said:
“Some fairly well known singer-songwriters once said that ‘all you need
Equal Love case filed to European Court
by David Watters
Legal bid for gay marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships
If we got married we would be colluding with the segregation that exists in
matrimonial law between gay civil partnerships and straight civil marriages. We
don't want to take advantage of civil marriage when it is an option that is denied to
our lesbian and gay friends.
- Katherine Doyle (Equal Love Campaigner)
Following on from our article in last month’s AMBIENTE Magazine, we bring you
news that the UK Equal Love Campaign, coordinated by human rights activist
Peter Tatchell, has progressed significantly with the historic filing of a legal
application to the European Court of Human Rights.
The ECHR application was announced on 2 February 2011 at an Equal Love
briefing in Committee Room 17 of the entirely apt and austere House of
Commons, London.
The legal application was then simultaneously posted and faxed to the
European Court in Strasbourg.
Also in attendance were several of the sixteen plaintiffs, including the lead
same-sex couple, Rev Sharon Ferguson and her partner Franka Strietzel, and the
lead heterosexual couple, Tom Freeman and his partner Katherine Doyle.
Hosting the briefing, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said:
“Some fairly well known singer-songwriters once said that ‘all you need
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formalize our relationship. Because we feel alienated from the patriarchal
traditions of marriage, we would prefer to have a civil partnership. As a mixed-sex
couple, we are banned by law from doing so. By filing an application for civil
partnership, we are seeking to challenge this discriminatory law. Our decision is
also motivated by the fact that we object to the way same-sex couples are
prohibited from getting married”.
At the official press launch of the campaign, last December, Tom and Katherine
summarized their views on marriage inequality and their own personal reasons,
as a couple, for representing the Equal Love Campaign.
We have been amazed by how many people have reacted so strongly to the
Equal Love campaign – both against it and in favour. This shows that the ways in
which people choose or have the right to choose to give legitimacy to their
relationships is acknowledged as being central to their identities.
I want to explain my and Tom’s take on the straight half of the Equal Love
campaign in terms of equality, fulfilment and choice.
Our original idea, back in the summer of 2009, to try to get a civil partnership
started off as a plan to highlight the inequalities faced by couples such as Sharon
and Franka and the other gay couples seeking Equal Love, but as we gradually
realised the positive value of straight civil partnerships, moved towards a concern
for fulfilment and choice for all – it moved from the negative to the positive.
We are among a great many couples who choose not to marry because they
object on grounds to do with feminism, discomfort with heritage and terminology
or simply because it doesn’t feel right. Opening up Civil Partnerships to
heterosexual couples will bring the legal benefits previously only attainable
through marriage to these couples. The government always seems keen on
maximising the numbers of people who want to have their relationships
recognised in law by contracting a legal partnership with a fellow citizen. Here is
a way of enabling a great many more to do this – those who want to do just this
and nothing more, to move away from the associations marriage carries with it.
The right to choose will thus bring an increase in full participation in society, and
work to
traditions of marriage, we would prefer to have a civil partnership. As a mixed-sex
couple, we are banned by law from doing so. By filing an application for civil
partnership, we are seeking to challenge this discriminatory law. Our decision is
also motivated by the fact that we object to the way same-sex couples are
prohibited from getting married”.
At the official press launch of the campaign, last December, Tom and Katherine
summarized their views on marriage inequality and their own personal reasons,
as a couple, for representing the Equal Love Campaign.
We have been amazed by how many people have reacted so strongly to the
Equal Love campaign – both against it and in favour. This shows that the ways in
which people choose or have the right to choose to give legitimacy to their
relationships is acknowledged as being central to their identities.
I want to explain my and Tom’s take on the straight half of the Equal Love
campaign in terms of equality, fulfilment and choice.
Our original idea, back in the summer of 2009, to try to get a civil partnership
started off as a plan to highlight the inequalities faced by couples such as Sharon
and Franka and the other gay couples seeking Equal Love, but as we gradually
realised the positive value of straight civil partnerships, moved towards a concern
for fulfilment and choice for all – it moved from the negative to the positive.
We are among a great many couples who choose not to marry because they
object on grounds to do with feminism, discomfort with heritage and terminology
or simply because it doesn’t feel right. Opening up Civil Partnerships to
heterosexual couples will bring the legal benefits previously only attainable
through marriage to these couples. The government always seems keen on
maximising the numbers of people who want to have their relationships
recognised in law by contracting a legal partnership with a fellow citizen. Here is
a way of enabling a great many more to do this – those who want to do just this
and nothing more, to move away from the associations marriage carries with it.
The right to choose will thus bring an increase in full participation in society, and
work to
is love’. But sadly it’s not as simple as that if you’re an opposite-sex couple
wanting a civil partnership, or a same- sex couple wanting a civil marriage. This
is a campaign about equal love – it is not about asking for special treatment for
gay couples or straight couples. It is about everyone enjoying the same rights
regardless of their sexuality.”
THE STORY SO FAR
“Since November, four same-sex couples were refused marriage licenses at
register offices in Greenwich, Northampton and Petersfield. Four heterosexual
couples were also turned away when they applied for civil partnerships in
Islington, Camden, Bristol and Aldershot. All eight couples received letters of
refusal from their register offices, which we have used as the evidential basis to
challenge in the European Court of Human Rights the UK’s exclusion of gay
couples from civil marriage and its prohibition of straight civil partnerships. Since
there is no substantive difference in the rights and responsibilities involved in gay
marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships, there is no justification for having
two mutually exclusive and discriminatory systems,” explains Mr Tatchell.
There is strength in that the Equal Love case highlights the two separate but
equal institutions of civil marriage and civil partnership as discriminatory, divisive
and exclusionary in that access to each institution is dependent upon the
sexuality of the couple.
ALTRUISTIC ALLIES
One of the opposite-sex plaintiffs who, with her partner Tom Freeman is seeking
the option to enter a civil partnership, Katherine Doyle, explains that, “We have
been together for nearly five years and would like to
wanting a civil partnership, or a same- sex couple wanting a civil marriage. This
is a campaign about equal love – it is not about asking for special treatment for
gay couples or straight couples. It is about everyone enjoying the same rights
regardless of their sexuality.”
THE STORY SO FAR
“Since November, four same-sex couples were refused marriage licenses at
register offices in Greenwich, Northampton and Petersfield. Four heterosexual
couples were also turned away when they applied for civil partnerships in
Islington, Camden, Bristol and Aldershot. All eight couples received letters of
refusal from their register offices, which we have used as the evidential basis to
challenge in the European Court of Human Rights the UK’s exclusion of gay
couples from civil marriage and its prohibition of straight civil partnerships. Since
there is no substantive difference in the rights and responsibilities involved in gay
marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships, there is no justification for having
two mutually exclusive and discriminatory systems,” explains Mr Tatchell.
There is strength in that the Equal Love case highlights the two separate but
equal institutions of civil marriage and civil partnership as discriminatory, divisive
and exclusionary in that access to each institution is dependent upon the
sexuality of the couple.
ALTRUISTIC ALLIES
One of the opposite-sex plaintiffs who, with her partner Tom Freeman is seeking
the option to enter a civil partnership, Katherine Doyle, explains that, “We have
been together for nearly five years and would like to
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minimize the numbers of people who feel excluded.
Just as important a question as ‘why?’ is ‘why not?’ Civil Partnerships have
already been provided for by the law. What purpose could excluding us on the
grounds that we are of a particular sexuality possibly serve? All institutions
should be equal ‘by default’ if there is no good reason for them to be otherwise.
The introduction of civil partnerships for gay couples only
suggested that there is something fundamental in the
nature
of sexuality which dictates that long-term committed
relationships between same-sex and opposite-sex couples
are fundamentally different and must be recognised as such
in law.
Civil partnerships thus began as part of an effort to preserve separateness, and it
was only in this old, outdated spirit that straight people were excluded from them.
In the context of the worldwide trend towards gay and straight couples enjoying
the same rights through the same processes, it is becoming clearer that the only
important thing about marriage or partnership, in modern times, is love between
two people. But the strongest riposte to this old prejudice is the inclusive one –
to embrace the new options that have been thrown up by the process of change
and, since they are already here, make the most of them by incorporating them
into a new framework offering maximum choice. Why not increase people’s
levels of choice when the groundwork has already been done? There is no
reason why we shouldn’t, now, in the era of more complete equality we are
moving in to. We have now an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive, and
retrieve something of real value from an old, flawed situation. This is an historic
opportunity, and it is too good to miss.
So while it is obvious that marriage equality is now on the way – the fight for
gay equality is very far from over, but it is a one-way railway of increasing
toleration, and decreasing homophobia – another fight must
Just as important a question as ‘why?’ is ‘why not?’ Civil Partnerships have
already been provided for by the law. What purpose could excluding us on the
grounds that we are of a particular sexuality possibly serve? All institutions
should be equal ‘by default’ if there is no good reason for them to be otherwise.
The introduction of civil partnerships for gay couples only
suggested that there is something fundamental in the
nature
of sexuality which dictates that long-term committed
relationships between same-sex and opposite-sex couples
are fundamentally different and must be recognised as such
in law.
Civil partnerships thus began as part of an effort to preserve separateness, and it
was only in this old, outdated spirit that straight people were excluded from them.
In the context of the worldwide trend towards gay and straight couples enjoying
the same rights through the same processes, it is becoming clearer that the only
important thing about marriage or partnership, in modern times, is love between
two people. But the strongest riposte to this old prejudice is the inclusive one –
to embrace the new options that have been thrown up by the process of change
and, since they are already here, make the most of them by incorporating them
into a new framework offering maximum choice. Why not increase people’s
levels of choice when the groundwork has already been done? There is no
reason why we shouldn’t, now, in the era of more complete equality we are
moving in to. We have now an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive, and
retrieve something of real value from an old, flawed situation. This is an historic
opportunity, and it is too good to miss.
So while it is obvious that marriage equality is now on the way – the fight for
gay equality is very far from over, but it is a one-way railway of increasing
toleration, and decreasing homophobia – another fight must
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not be forgotten: one for increased choice for all, whether gay or straight.
To us, the applicants, and many other heterosexual couples, getting married
would be a compromise. This is the most personal of life experiences and, it
follows, if there is one area where compromise should not be accepted, this is
surely it.
So don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – don’t let it become just a gay
issue. Most people, at some point in their lives, will fall in love and want
recognition for their relationship. This is basic to the modern human condition –
it is not a gay issue or a straight issue but a human issue.
The Equal Love campaign is for us about working for complete equality, the
utmost fulfilment, and maximum choice – for all.
We are yet to see the full impact of this initiative. This is just the start of what
promises to be a ground breaking move towards redefining the nature and
purpose of marriage.
As a Human Rights, rather than “just” a Gay Rights, issue the Equal Love
campaign has great weight behind it.
There is a growing level of public support both nationally and internationally;
conduct a web search and you will find numerous references to Equal Love UK in
conventional mainstream media and on a wide variety of privately held websites
and blogs – from Manchester to Malawi.
The words of our altruistic allies will enter forums of discussion where the
LGBT community have been often ignored and this broader discourse can only
serve to enhance a shift towards more positive public perceptions about the need
for equality in our world.
For more information on the EQUAL LOVE CAMPAIGN:
www.equallove.org.uk
Contact David E Watters: DavidWatters@nbiassociates.co.uk
Copyright 2011 © AMBIENTE MAGAZINE. Do not reproduce without citing this source
To us, the applicants, and many other heterosexual couples, getting married
would be a compromise. This is the most personal of life experiences and, it
follows, if there is one area where compromise should not be accepted, this is
surely it.
So don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – don’t let it become just a gay
issue. Most people, at some point in their lives, will fall in love and want
recognition for their relationship. This is basic to the modern human condition –
it is not a gay issue or a straight issue but a human issue.
The Equal Love campaign is for us about working for complete equality, the
utmost fulfilment, and maximum choice – for all.
We are yet to see the full impact of this initiative. This is just the start of what
promises to be a ground breaking move towards redefining the nature and
purpose of marriage.
As a Human Rights, rather than “just” a Gay Rights, issue the Equal Love
campaign has great weight behind it.
There is a growing level of public support both nationally and internationally;
conduct a web search and you will find numerous references to Equal Love UK in
conventional mainstream media and on a wide variety of privately held websites
and blogs – from Manchester to Malawi.
The words of our altruistic allies will enter forums of discussion where the
LGBT community have been often ignored and this broader discourse can only
serve to enhance a shift towards more positive public perceptions about the need
for equality in our world.
For more information on the EQUAL LOVE CAMPAIGN:
www.equallove.org.uk
Contact David E Watters: DavidWatters@nbiassociates.co.uk
Copyright 2011 © AMBIENTE MAGAZINE. Do not reproduce without citing this source