The Civil Union Bill that’s been proposed the Blair government in the UK is supposed to give same-sex couples all the rights, resonsiblities, etc that married couples do. Now since the marrige in mentioned in hundreds of acts of parliament, orders in council, letters patent etc, I assume the bill has a clause saying every law that mentions marriage will also apply to a civil union. So what about the Royal Marriage Act of 1772? If either Prince William or Harry, or one of the minor royals like Princess Breatrice or Zara Phillips want to be civilly joined would they need to ask the Queen? If it’s a royal prince would his partnet get a title since the wives of princes are also titled? Would the ban on marrying Catholics apply?
But, as currently drafted, the Civil Partnership Bill doesn’t have ‘a clause saying every law that mentions marriage will also apply to a civil union’.
Instead, what it does is to extend to ‘civil partners’ a number of rights, mostly relating to property, as are enjoyed by married couples. Those rights are wide-ranging and broadly defined. They are also those rights for which gay pressure groups have been campaigning hardest. But what the Bill is careful not to do is to say that civil partners = married couples.
What this means is that there would be nothing to stop a member of the Royal Family entering into a civil partnership, whatever the partner’s religion and with or without the Queen’s permission, but, equally, that partner would have no automatic right to the privileges, including any titles, that go with being married to a member of the Royal Family. It’s therefore not much of a loophole and, in any case, if it did happen, it wouldn’t be the legal technicalities that would cause the fuss.