The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Same-sex couple celebrate legal victory
A SAME-SEX couple who lost a legal fight to marry eight years ago have become the first in the UK to have their union legally recognised.
Sue Wilkinson, 60 and Celia Kitzinger, 57, married in Canada in 2003 and fought to have their union recognised here.
They took their fight to the High Court in 2006, when a judge refused to make a declaration that their marriage was valid in this country, adding they faced “an insurmountable hurdle” in having their marriage recognised under English law.
However, due to a change in the law last year, their marriage became legally binding at one minute past midnight yesterday— when couples who married overseas we re automatically recognised.
Ms Kitzinger, sociology professor at York University, said last night they would celebrate at their home in Gribthorpe, near Selby in the East Riding of Yorkshire, with a bottle of bubbly.
“At 12.01 when our marriage is f inally recognised in our home country I think we’ll be opening a bottle of champagne, toasting ourselves, toasting equality and toasting the future of lesbian and gay equality for all countries of the world,” she said.
She added: “I came out as lesbian in 1973 and things were a lot different then and it never occurred to me that one day the law would be changed such that my marriage to the woman that I love would be recognised.
“We’re the 15th country in the world so it’s been a bit slow and behind countries you would be quite surprised about.”
The couple wed in Vancouver in 2003, where same- sex marriages were legal and embarked on an expensive legal battle to have their union recognised in England.