By Paul Healey
The controversial government proposals concerning converting current civil partnerships into civil marriage are being fully supported by Brighton & Hove City Councillors, as announced yesterday.
Consultation continues at which time the full council may make a formal motion of support in response, but a letter showing full support was recently sent to the Government Equalities office to comply with their June 14th deadline to a 12 week consultation on civil marriage.
Councillor Jason Kitkat said: “I’m delighted we are united in supporting the proposals to allow same-sex couples to have civil marriages. These proposals are another step forwards to full equality. On behalf of our city’s large LGBT community I hope this will deliver much needed change while allowing existing faiths and traditions to continue unaffected.”
The key proposals allow for civil ceremonies in a register office or any of 44 approved premises which include the Royal Pavilion, Brighton Bandstand and Brighton Pier. Religious marriages would not be affected but registrations on religious premises would continue as on a voluntary basis for faith groups and with no religious content.
Current civil partnerships would remain with the option to convert to a marriage.
The proposals would even allow for people to legally change their gender without having to end their marriage.
From the 1st January 2011 to date there have been 297 civil partnerships in the city and some 1780 marriages.
Details of the government consultation can be found on the website:
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/consultations/equal-civil-marriage/
Thanks for this post. I wrote one myself (in Italian, unfortunately!) on basically the same issue (http://brightalian.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/gay-e-lesbiche-mano-nella-mano). But there’s a photo project, entitled “The Brighton gays&lesbians walking away hand in hand Project” for everyone to enjoy on my Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/75160689@N07/sets/72157629805987540). Cheers, Gianfranco.