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| That's one way to tie the knot! (S) |
Ten days, people of England and Wales. Ten days until same sex couples will (if everything goes well) be legally allowed to marry in parts of the United Kingdom. It’s a good feeling for me.
This morning, the government in the UK published its proposal to legalise gay marriage. Called the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, it proposes various changes to existing legislation, including the extension of marriage to same-sex couples, the granting of the ability to perform marriages in army chapels, and the conversion of civil partnership to marriage. It can be found here.
If the bill passes, it would be very well timed. February in the UK is LGBT History Month, and having (almost) complete marriage equality would be a big deal. There are several religious groups that have already expressed their support for equality, like the Church of Wales, and even though the Church of England has opted out of the proceedings, they did say that in the future they would probably change their mind and join in. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the Catholic Church is against it as well, but one day they may see sense.
This bill benefits the whole LGBT (and, by association, most of the QUILTBAG spectrum!), and it includes more than just same-sex marriage. The part of the Bill that was most surprising and unexpected to me was the part that targeted trans* people. It’s an oversight in British law that I had never heard, but I thought I’d tell you, dear reader, because maybe you don’t know either: in British law, a married trans* person must terminate their marriage before they can legally change their gender, even if they and their partner don’t want to.
It seems obvious (when put in the context of British Law, at least) that this would be the case – for one married partner to change their gender, the marriage would then have to be between two people of the same sex, which is (currently) against the law, however flawed that particular that law is. I’d not heard of it in any QUILTBAG circles that I frequent, however, and I only found out about it when I answered the consultation on same-sex marriage in the UK a few months ago.
Anyway, this bill being put forward explicitly states that:
(2) The certificate is to be a full gender recognition certificate if—
(a) the applicant is neither a civil partner nor married,
(b) the applicant is a party to a protected marriage and the applicant’s spouse consents to the marriage continuing after the issue of a full gender recognition certificate, or
(c) the applicant is a party to a protected civil partnership and the Panel has decided to issue a full gender recognition certificate to the other party to the civil partnership.
So there you have it, trans* people in England and Wales. You can legally change your gender whilst married, as long as your spouse consents.
It’s been a long time coming (even longer for people in Scotland and Northern Ireland – the other two countries in the United Kingdom – which have yet to propose their own marriage equality bill, although Scotland has promised to put a bill to vote by 2015), but I’ll be honest and say that I never expected it to be voted on while a Conservative government (even if they are in a coalition with Liberal Democrats) was in power.
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| Maybe Cameron got tired of the civil partnership jokes about him and Clegg? (S) |
Let’s not forget that the Conservative party in 1988 passed “Section 28”, which forbade "the intentional promotion of homosexuality" by any local authority and "the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". In 2009, David Cameron (the current leader of the Conservative party) apologised for his party introducing the law, which was only repealed in 2003 by a Labour government. Now, in 2013, they’re preparing to vote on marriage equality.
How this vote will turn out is up in the air, but it’s possible to make some very rough guesses of how it will go. Labour, being majority liberal and a long-time supporter of marriage equality, will mostly vote yes to the bill. Liberal Democrat will do the same – they’ve been pushing for this for just as long as Labour. The Conservative party is fairly split in opinion; Cameron himself is in favour of the bill, while more traditional members of his party will vote no to try to appeal to the hard-line, more right wing voters. UKIP and the BNP will vote no (they’re too right wing to be just mostly one way or the other). Ultimately it will probably come down to the three main parties – and I reckon that it will end well for equality. Together, Labour and Liberal Democrat have a majority, and even if some of their MPs vote no, then hopefully the Tory MPs (along with the other smaller liberal parties) will fill the gap.
However, if you are worried and you live in the United Kingdom, Stonewall are encouraging people to write to and tweet their Member of Parliament. Information on how to find your MP and their address is here, and to find your MP if they are on Twitter you can use this site. If you do tweet, make sure to tag it with #EqualMarriage. Stonewall's message can be found here.
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