A 2010 Equality Network survey of the LGBT community found that 85 per cent of respondents believe marriage should be available to same-sex couples and that this should be a campaign priority.
Why is it important? To start with, it’s an issue of freedom of religious belief. Same-sex couples in Scotland cannot have their union solemnised by a religious celebrant, even if the minister or faith leader would dearly wish to do so. Civil partnerships can only be solemnised by a registrar, with no religious content as part of the ceremony. In England this looked to be changing, though it now appears that, with the change of government, this legislation may never come into effect.
Secondly, most of the rights are not all of the rights. Couples in civil partnerships still face practical discrimination. For example, under the Gender Recognition Act, couples where one party is transsexual have to divorce in order to achieve official recognition of their change of gender. There is also no effective international framework in place to recognise civil partnerships. Marriage, while not similarly practised around the world, is a globally recognised institution.
Perhaps most fundamentally, segregated is not equal. The most straightforward route to ensuring same-sex and mixed-sex couples had access to the same rights would have been to equalise marriage, and yet civil partnerships were introduced, specifically seeking to deny marriage to same-sex couples. The education boards of the southern United States were told firmly that separate was not equal fifty years ago, whatever the prejudice, the principle remains the same. Can we legislate for an individual’s own views and opinions? No we can’t. But can we legislate for a country where discrimination is not enshrined in law? Yes we certainly can.
Finally, and this may be surprising, equal marriage is electorally popular. In the 2006 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 53 per cent of respondents agree that same-sex couples should be able to marry, while only 21 per cent disagree. For Labour voters the figures are similar, with 54 per cent agreeing and 21 per cent against. Public opinion has changed rapidly, with those in favour up from 41 per cent a few years previously, and the trajectory indicates a long-term trend as opposed to a blip.
So how could we achieve this? With the ConDems currently in power at Westminster, great strides forward for LGBT equality look unlikely on a UK basis. Scotland may be a different matter. Although a legislative consent motion was used by the Scottish parliament to introduce civil partnerships across the UK on similar terms, family law is a devolved issue. It is, therefore, under the authority of the Scottish parliament to introduce equal marriage in Scotland. This could be achieved through government legislation, a private member’s mill, or through a committee bill. Introducing equal marriage in Scotland independently of the rest of the UK would mean that reserved issues related to marriage, namely tax and immigration, would remain unchanged.
Scotland certainly wouldn’t be the first country to equalise marriage. Seven European countries and 12 countries worldwide have already done so, with some of these countries equalising civil partnerships at the same time.
Introducing equal marriage would champion religious freedom, ensure rights truly are equal and would abolish this particular form of institutionalised discrimination. More than twice as many of our voters, and of the electorate in general, are for this than against it. Would it be easy? Well, possibly not, but what thing worth doing ever is?
Don’t hold your breath. If the Scottish Parliament had wanted to do this they would have legislated for it already. They chose to have an LCM and the let the UK parliament make the change because of the baked in social conservatism of the Scottish Parliament.