Ealing Couple Fight To Change Marriage Law Rejected

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Civil partnerships for heterosexual couples still not recognised

A couple from Ealing found themselves at the centre of a bill debated in Parliament on Friday 13 Jan 2017 aiming to make history by overturning the ban on opposite sex couples entering into civil partnerships.

Currently civil partnerships are only allowed in the UK for same-sex couples but this is now being challenged. Martin Loat and Claire Beale of South Ealing who have two children made history by being the first UK-based straight couple to enter into a civil partnership in the British Isles. However as their MP Rupa Huq put it raising their case in the House of Commons “they had to fly to the Isle of Man to do it. I’m sure the Isle of Man is a lovely place but if this bill passes, no-one will ever have to make that journey again”.

Tim Loughton the backbench Conservative MP sponsoring the bill argued that the current situation was unsatisfactory and in adopting this measure legal protections would be afforded to the estimated 2.9 million heterosexuals who live together in couples but whose union is not recognised by the state – over 1 million of these have children.*

Rupa Huq MP for Ealing Central and Acton said “Civil partnerships, introduced by the last Labour Government, were groundbreaking in allowing LGBT people to have their loving relationships recognised by law and have the same benefits as married couples. The current block on different sex couples to access civil partnerships was an unintended consequence of the path to equal marriage that now needs rectifying. They were a huge step forward back in 2004 but that was 13 years ago and it's now time to open them up to all.''

The government effectively “talked out” the bill allowing the timing of the Parliamentary session to lapse so the motion fell. The minister Rob Halfon replied that the issue could not be revisited while pending High Court action continued and that The Government needed time to assess all the tax and benefit implications of such a change.

Martin Loat expressed disappointed but said the fight would go on: ''We are one of the 3 million or so ‘happily unmarrieds’.We are fine as we are and have proved it as much as any married couple have with our longevity. We don't see the need to take vows (religious or civil) underwritten by God or the state to validate that we have a firm relationship. When same-sex marriage became legal, many gay couples "traded up" to marriage from a civil partnership…So if you have a different sex couple who are happy to take the leaner, modern option, what's wrong with that?”

 

 

 

18th January 2017