I don’t think he can do that (unless they divorce first). I mean, nothing stops them having a wedding celebration, of course, but I don’t think they can legally get married at this point. This is what I understand from the LGBT media; there was quite a fuss from people who wanted to do the same thing and were told they couldn’t. Admittedly, though, I can’t find where that’s prohibited in the law.
On a heavily-related topic, I happened upon Channel 4’s Our Gay Marriage: The Musical last night in which a couple turned their actual wedding into a deeply-moving musical. If the premise sounds horrible and twee, trust me - it was as profound as it was joyous (although weddings and musicals are both by nature cheesy, so there was no escaping that aspect either).
I don’t know if it’s viewable outside the UK, but The Telegraph has a good review of it if you can’t watch it.
Looks like you’re right: Elton John and David Furnish want to marry in May, but as civil partners, they are banned
I just came across this rather signifcant change that same-sex marriage in the UK causes:
This will change when civil partnerships are converted to marriage.
I’m really not sure how this would affect people who are already civilly partnered and are also already drawing a pension based on the old, unfair rules. Will there be backdating?
I doubt it would affect many people, but I’ve met at least one personally, a man who got a civil partnership and then his partner died (they were both pretty old). He would only have been entitled to a lower rate of pension; if he’s still alive now, will he be due a huge rebate?
I think that’s fair enough. If you did allow full, official ceremonies for civil partnerships converting to marriages, then it would go against the legislation that (soon) will retroactively convert civil partnerships to marriage. You can’t get married twice. You can have a renewal of your vows, of course.
Disregarding the emotional issues, what’s the difference between the previous registered partnership and the current gay marriage in the UK?
Up here on the other side of the North Sea, the only legal differences I know about are whether or not the couple is allowed to adopt a child, availability of assisted reproductive treatment and the option of having the ceremony in a church. Except from that, a registered partnership was treated as legally equal to a marriage.
I linked to them above. The differences are the right to get married in certain churches (only if the head of the church’s religion agrees, and excluding the CofE even if he agrees with gay marriage, which he does), some pension rights, and immigration rights.
We already have rights to adopt as a couple and rights to reproductive treatment, with both parents named on the birth certificate. Some of those were introduced gradually after the civil partnership bill was first enacted. Those are pretty huge rights, not something to include under “the only legal differences…”
I’m sorry if my post came out as insensitive. I guess that the reason I worded it that way was because when I got married (straight), the reproductive rights definitely weren’t the most pressing issues for us. Rather, it was about presenting ourselves as a committed couple, tax filing, inheritance and such stuff.
Does it help to excuse myself with the fact that English isn’t my native language? I believe I understand - somewhat - that the issues around having children can be as big - or even bigger due to the prejudice - for gay couples as for straight couples, and it wasn’t my intention to make light of those issues for gay people.
PS: Congratulations!
I saw it too. I was prepared for it to be cringe-worthy but it was BRILLIANT. Proper tears on the couch. I hope the denizens of Googlebox cover it, thus allowing me to have a secondary cry.
I went down Whitehall in the sun on Saturday to see the rainbow flags flying. Quite extraordinary, really, how far we have come.
Other than the pension stuff mentioned above (and that hasn’t been entirely sorted out with equal marriage either) there are some differences that are quite significant for those affected.
The first is international recognition: the US federal government, for example, won’t recognize a civil partnership but will recognize a foreign same-sex marriage. I believe the same is true in some continental European countries e.g. Spain. I know that in Canada and South Africa a civil partnership is recognized, but only because previous couples have gone through expensive litigation to establish the precedent.
The second is for trans people. Before the equal marriage law, if someone was married/civilly partnered and they wanted to change legal gender, they had to divorce first, even if they were going to immediately re-marry/re-partner the same person once their gender change was legal.
The third is that civil partnership ceremonies couldn’t be performed in church.
Even prior to this the UK had the strongest LGBT rights and protections in Europe.
Spain considers civil partnerships as weirdly-named civil marriages, unless the specific legislation of the granting country states they are not; if the officer in charge of recognizing it for legal purposes is in doubt, what’s needed is to prove that the rights and duties granted by that thing with the strange name are equivalent or greater than those of a Spanish civil marriage (which in this case they are). What may be affected is the ability of Brits to get a civil marriage in Spain; our laws state you can’t get a marriage here that would be illegal in your country, and by having the direct translation be completely straightforward it’s clearer that the UK relationship and the Spanish one are direct equivalents, the paperwork is easier (no need to go check what rights and duties are involved and/or whether any Brits have already gotten SSM’d in Spain). But from what I’ve seen reported in cases where a marriage was denied on grounds of illegality in the country of one of the spouses, UK civil partnerships were recognized - Brits would be given as one of the examples of “people who can enter an SSM in Spain”.
Just want to share my history. When I was in my 20’s, in a long term relationship with a person of the same sex, I was against marriage for all. I looked at marriage as more of a religious tradition.
Twenty years later, and married to a man, I am totally for equal marriage rights. I look back at my twenties, and realize I was uptight, and tried to conform to what others in my life expected.
The older I get, the more open I become. I really do not care what my family thinks anymore. Everyone should be afforded the same rights.
O.K. done sharing.
There was evidently some difficulty in the past over whether Spain would recognize British CPs.
This will never work in Wales. Only one gay per village. 
I’m in Ireland. We’ve got civil unions here, and fingers crossed we’ll be getting same-sex marriage soon - there’s a referendum next year. It really is mind-boggling how far we’ve come and how fast. In the early 90s, when I started college, homosexuality was illegal.
I’ve got two kids under five. I hope and believe that when they grow up, they’ll take marriage equality for granted to the point that they’ll be gobsmacked by the idea that, in their own lifetimes, it wasn’t allowed here. I think they’ll have the same reaction that I do when I think about the fact that, in my parents’ lifetimes, black people in the US had to use different drinking fountains from whites: how the hell was that possibly considered OK?
Interesting map. Do you have any idea how they did the scoring? I’d be interested to see how Canada scores on that system.
Yeah, because of the problem with legally-binding translations needing to be absolutely literal*, but once that one case was recognized, every other one was.
- Big pet peeve of mine - many bound translators take the “literal” part to mean “the first of all possible translations”, leading to things such as a matrícula de honor being called “plate of honor” rather than “tuition waiver”. Matrícula means (license) plate or tuition among other things; the translator chose the first translation because it was the first one in the dictionary. They are also not allowed to reorder anything, change punctuation… so what should be the most exacting and precise translations often end up being worse than babelfish.
There are some things about that article which had really been irritating me but I’d said “hey, it’s good news, shut the hell up”. But damnit, let’s fight ignorance.
What benefits were the Wards denied? Doesn’t say. Their source for “the Spanish government doesn’t recognize your marriage” wasn’t the Spanish government, it was a British consul. Not Hacienda, not Seguridad Social, not a Registro Civil. A British consul is not a representative of the Spanish government.
Which judges were involved in their denial of benefits? None are mentioned. The process if you’re denied marriage benefits on account of “your union is not marriage-equivalent” involves an instancia (a formal letter) to the denying body; if denied again, a civil judge. This process isn’t mentioned at all.
What does changing their passports have to do with recognition by the Spanish government? It’s not the one changing the passports.
Changing the stupid former name solves the translation issue, and it would certainly be damn nice if those “separate but sort of equal” situations were never created in the first place, but that’s all the issue was and those conversations at levels which aren’t those normally involved in a marriage-recognition process amount to doing at a high level what should have been done at a much lower one. The conversations amount to “ok, so are these people in a civil marriage or a cohabitating unmarried relationship?” “they’re not married, they’re civilly partnered” “que sí, cojones, but what does that mean? Can they file jointly?” “well, yes, but” “ok guys, they’re married, pass it around”. There isn’t even mention of a treaty, like those between Spain and several of our neighbors governing marriage benefits in polygamous marriages from those neighbors.