Presumably it relieves pressure on the General Synod to make a choice on it’s own.
That’s not a valid reason to refuse that permission. But if, upon questioning, either intended spouse gave an answer that indicated their definition of marriage would not have made it canonically valid (for example, “if it doesn’t work we’ll just get a divorce”), then that is valid grounds. It’s possible the priest was a jackass, but the cases I’ve personally met who were saying it was “because Paco is an atheist” turned out to be for the other reason. Of course, “because Paco is an atheist” is both shorter and less bitter than “because Paco said the only reason he wanted a Church wedding was so our mothers won’t kick up a fuss”.
Sorry, that’s how I was lead to understand it. My bad.
Either way, the rest of what I said is basically true. A Catholic wedding is one of the Sacrements, and all that. I believe, AFAIK, it’s one of those times when the church is like, super serious. 
Again, you’re not just renting out a building, or whatever. I’m NOT saying that a Catholic marriage is anymore valid than a civil one or whatever, but it’s not something like, you can just walk in and say, “Oh hey, we wanna schedule a wedding, where do we sign up?”
That’s ludicrous. Churches aren’t businesses, they’re private associations. I’m perfectly free to create my own club and only allow white able-bodied heterosexuals males younger than 60 to join some or all the activities I’m organizing. A Church is just a big private club. There’s no general right to become a member, or to be allowed to take part in such or such ceremony in any western country I know of. I can’t ordain priests in a Catholic church, since I’m not a Catholic bishop, regardless how bad I want to ordain some.
If I’m unhappy with it, it’s up to me to create my own Clairobscur Catholic Church where anybody can ordain anybody and sanctified group marriages between male members are mandatory.
I should have read the whole thread, as usual.
Ok, then. If you’re right about the British government/parliament deciding who gets to be married in a CoE church, I withdraw my comment and agree that it shouldn’t have passed such a discriminatory law and that the couple mentioned in the OP has a perfectly valid reason to go to court.
However I have a question : the CoE is a State Church so let’s forget about it. How comes the law has provisions about Quakers or Jews? Does it mean that they could as well have forbidden Jews from marrying homosexual couples in synagogues, and mandated that Quakers should, on the other hand, marry them without discrimination? It seems baffling to me that a law would contain such provisions.
The problem here is having established religion. Changing the particular set of ridiculous superstitions they ascribe to is just stupid.
Agreed 100%. You can blow hard about how it isn’t a “real” state religion or whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is that it is, and its a problem now.
As you say, we don’t have a written constitution. We DO, however, have various equality laws on the books designed to protect people from discrimination based on their sexual orientation - and this extends to employers and businesses as well. You can’t refuse to serve someone in a shop because they are gay, for instance.
The various complex laws were brought together under the Equalities Act 2010, which
Note the word ‘public’ - that’s the state stuff you were looking for.
Aren’t you in France? EU law says otherwise about that club, you may not discriminate your offer of services based on various protected classes. Someone else has already cited them.
It’s time these laws were enforced properly, and the establishment stops protecting bigots. Whatever the reason for their bigotry.
IANAL, but I think there must be a difference between businesses offering services to the general public, and private clubs. There are still golf clubs in the UK, for instance, that don’t allow women members, including Muirfield, where this year’s Open was held.
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I think those should be banned, too. I actually thought they had been, there was a lot of fuss about them a few years back.
But why would you make that type of provision unless you thought it could stand the test of a lawsuit? It seems like they were afraid that, without that provision, the state churches would have to perform same sex marriages. Or they thought that the State churches were the only churches they could legally control in that way.
There’s no other way that the law makes sense to me, anyways.
Actually, the Church in Wales is not banned from opting in. See section 8 of the act. If/when the CiW decides to perform same-sex marriages, the Lord Chancellor can (and must) make the necessary amendments to allow it.
Apparently the General Synod of the Church of England actually has power to make its own legislation through Church Measures, which can even amend parliamentary legislation on church matters. So perhaps when the CoE decides to perform SSMs it can do so of its own volition. Church Measures are still subject to parliamentary approval, but not the full process of passing an Act.
(To my mind, all this complication demonstrates why disestablishement would be a good idea.)