‘Heartbroken’ NI campaigners call for civil partnerships here to be converted into marriages
LOCAL same-sex marriage campaigners are set to launch legal action against what they claim is a “heartbreaking” delay on the part of the government.
Partners will be able to tie the knot from early next year following a major liberalisation of the law surrounding gay unions.
But more than 1,200 couples who already have civil partnerships will not be able to convert them to full marriages in the new year under official proposals, lobbyists said.
Amanda McGurk entered a civil partnership with Cara McCann earlier this year before the law change and said she was devastated to learn she could miss out on a dream wedding.
She added: “My heart broke again and I can assure you that I was not the only person in that
room whose heart broke. I could feel other hearts breaking right beside me.
“It was horrific to realise we had gotten so close again only to have it ripped away from us. (It was a) realisation that, again, some of us were going to be treated as second-class citizens within our own community.”
Ms McCann said: “Just a few weeks ago, I sat in a room in Stormont House with government ministers and officials and was told that I could become a married woman in the new year. Now the government has changed its mind.
“Our campaign for equal marriage has always been about rejecting second-class citizenship.
“We have already won our campaign in Parliament. Now we will go to court to ensure the government does not escape its legal obligation.”
Under government plans, same-sex couples here will be able to apply for a civil marriage but will not be able to convert an existing civil partnership to a marriage, or get married in a religious ceremony, the Love Equality campaign said.
Ms McGurk said if she and Ms McCann had delayed their civil partnership for a year, they could be getting married. “We all want to get married when we grow up. We don’t want to be civilly partnered and I don’t want to have a civil partner. I want to have a wife,” she added.
The Rev Chris Hudson, minister of All Souls Church in Belfast — part of the Non-Subscribing
Church of Ireland — said his colleagues in the rest of the UK and the Republic could officiate at a same-sex marriage.
He added: “To decide that you will lock couples of faith out of a process that is on offer to heterosexual couples, which is faith marriage, to me seems to be — and I don’t like using this word
— but it is discriminatory.”
A government spokeswoman said: “Parliament passed legislation which requires the government to put in place legislation to allow for civil same-sex marriage and opposite-sex civil partnership in Northern Ireland by January 13, 2020. We are working to meet this deadline.”
❝ We all want to get married. I don’t want to have a civil partner, I want to have a wife