I was reading up on David Cameron’s Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill on Wikipedia, and something struck me. According to the wiki Schedule 4 of Clause 11 in divorce proceeding the legal defination of adultery will remain limited to sex between members of the opposite sex and neither spouse in a same-sex marriage will be able to obtain an annulment on the grounds of non-comsumation (which opposite-sex couples can).
Is this information accurate? If so why is the goverment not changing that part of existing law? If the purpose of this bill is give same-sex unions equal standing and have them governed by the same laws as opposite-sex unions why give same-sex couples one less ground for divorce than opposite-sex couples? Why let opposite-sex couples annul their marriages for non-consumation, but not same-sex couples? I know that similiar rules were in effect for civil partnerships, but since civil partnerships are being replaced by marriages what’s the point of mainting those particular distinctions?
Also I know Scotland is planning to legalize same-sex marriage on it’s own; are there any similiar plans in Northern Ireland, or will civil partnerships be retained there for the foreseeable future?
The explanation given by whichever junior minister trotted out on the radio this morning was that the bill drafting committee were unable to come to an agreement on the definition of consummation in a same-sex marriage. Therefore they couldn’t agree on what constitutes non-consummation or consummation with another, so they’ve excluded those divorce options.
Incidentally, this was used by one of the speakers as a reason for opposing gay marriage, in convoluted reasoning I’d not come across before. Not ‘they can’t make babies’ but ‘they can’t do proper sex’. :rolleyes:
ETA: my phone is determined to spell consummation with two m’s. Doesn’t look right to me…
Nadine Norris MP, bless her twisted brain, argued that it meant we wouldn’t be faithful to each other, unlike straight couples.
To the OP, currently ‘sex’ is defined in law as penis into vagina, and is required in order to sue for adultery. So if, for example, a married man sleeps with another man, his wife can’t divorce him on the grounds of adultery. Instead, she can sue on the grounds of ‘unreasonable behaviour’. It will be the same for same sex couples.
I don’t think so. For the purposes of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, penetration be it oral, anal or vagnianl is sufficient. I don’t think it is the case for adultry/divorce.
Does the penetration have to be with a penis? That defination of sex would work fine for gay men, but what about lesbians? And I’m assuming in practice this means that an Englishwoman can’t get a divorce for adultery unless her husband get’s his mistress pregnant, confesses, or she videotapes them having sex. How else could she prove the intercourse was vaginal?