Facts
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 created a scheme for the legal recognition of homosexual relationships. The Act applies to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
‘Civil partnerships’ are ‘gay marriage’ in all but name, extending all the legal rights and privileges of marriage to homosexual couples.1 The formal requirements precisely mirror civil weddings.
‘Civil partnerships’ thus equate holy matrimony with homosexual liaisons. Marriage is not morally equivalent to such lifestyles.
The Civil Partnership Act came into force on 5 December 2005. By 31 March 2006 a total of 6,516 Civil Partnerships had been registered in England and Wales2, 343 in Scotland3 and 43 in Northern Ireland.4
Biblical arguments
Marriage is a lifelong exclusive union between one man and one woman. It is a creation ordinance, instituted by God. Quoting from the book of Genesis, the Lord Jesus Christ said:
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?”5
The Book of Common Prayer recognises three purposes, according to Scripture, for which marriage was ordained:6
- the procreation and nurture of children;
- as a remedy against sin (fidelity); and
- for the mutual society, help and comfort of man and wife.
These three purposes of marriage have been historically accepted across the Christian denominations.7
Key points
The Civil Partnership Act creates a form of counterfeit marriage by:
- Creating a status equivalent to marriage for homosexual couples even though their relationships do not and cannot meet the same criteria.
- Attaching to that status all the legal and financial rights of marriage and copying all its formal requirements.
- Completely dismantling the Western legal tradition whereby marriage is accorded special respect and protection. The state has an interest in marriage. Marriage involves a public undertaking to stay together for life and is a union for the procreation of children.
The Government argued that same-sex couples were denied the legal recognition available to heterosexual couples through marriage. Yet everyone has access to marriage so long as he or she meets the legal requirement. Someone in a homosexual relationship has rejected the possibility of marriage by choosing a ‘partner’ of the same sex.
The Government has admitted that very few homosexuals (3.3%) will enter into a civil partnership.8
The Civil Partnership Act was not about access to marriage and the legal recognition it provides, but about redefining marriage to something it has never been. The Act creates counterfeit marriage.
The ultimate agenda
- The ultimate aim of the gay rights agenda is to completely equate homosexual relationships with marriage. UK gay rights groups are fully aware of the significance of civil partnerships in achieving legal same-sex marriage. The Government commented on its consultation: “it was clear that many of those who supported the principle of a civil partnership scheme would prefer that marriage was made available to same-sex couples.”9
- Civil partnerships equate homosexual relationships with marriage in law, though not in name. The Government’s Women and Equality Unit wants all official documentation asking for a person’s ‘marital status’ to be altered to read ‘civil status’. This would include both marriage and civil partnerships.10
- 1The 2005 budget extended the tax benefits of marriage to those who enter a civil partnership.
- 2General Register Office Press Release, 6,516 Civil Partnerships Formed in England and Wales by 31 March, 23 June 2006
- 3General Register Office for Scotland Press Release, First Statistics on Civil Partnerships in Scotland, 22 June 2006
- 4The Registrar General’s Quarterly Report: January to March 2005, Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency, 337, June 2006, Table 2
- 5Mathew 19:4-5
- 6The Book of Common Prayer (1552) in The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward The Sixth, Everyman Library Edition, Dent, London 1910, page 410 and Order for the Solemnization of Matrimony, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1976, page 356
- 7The three-fold purpose of marriage is accepted in The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), Free Presbyterian Publications, Glasgow, 1990, chapter 24, page 104. It also accepted in Roman Catholic doctrine see Neuner, J, and Dupuis, J (Eds.) The Christian Faith in the Documents of the Catholic Church, Collins, London, 1983, page 526; See The Encyclical Letter of Pius XI (1930) The Christian Faith in the Documents of the Catholic Church, page 532, 533 ; Canon 1055 § 1, in Örsy, Ladislas (Ed) Marriage in Canon Law, Michael Glazier, 1986, page 50 see also pages 46-47, 53
- 8Explanatory notes to the Civil Partnership Bill, 30 March 2004, page 108, footnote 3
- 9Responses to Civil Partnership: A Framework for the Legal Recognition of Same-sex Couples, DTI Women and Equality Unit, November 2003, page 13
- 10Responses to Civil Partnership: A Framework for the Legal Recognition of Same-sex Couples, DTI Women and Equality Unit, November 2003, page 41
