The heterosexual couples campaigning for civil partnership equality

Jan 8, 2017 by

by Nigel Morris, i News:

They have been together 25 years, have two children and describe themselves as “happily unmarried”. The idea of a traditional wedding, with the bride being “given away” and wearing white, has never appealed to Martin Loat and Claire Beale.
Yet as they reached middle age they started to worry about their family’s lack of legal recognition and financial security because they had always shied away from tying the knot.
“We don’t think that we should have to take a vow or validate our relationship in the eyes of the state” Martin Loat Had they been a gay couple they could have taken advantage of the legislation which ushered in civil partnerships in 2004.
But the status has never been available to settled heterosexual couples as the law has always assumed that straight men and women would want to convert their relationship into marriage.
Mr Loat, who runs a PR firm, explained that the west London couple could not relate to the “unnecessarily burdensome” social and cultural baggage which accompanies the centuries-old institution of marriage.
“We don’t think that we should have to take a vow or validate our relationship in the eyes of the state,” he said.
“We feel as established as any married couple – marriage isn’t a panacea for stability.
“We’ve known friends who have met, become engaged, got married and divorced in less time than we have been together.”
They took advantage of a constitutional quirk which allowed them as a different-sex couple to enter into a civil partnership in the Isle of Man, which is a crown dependency but not part of the United Kingdom.

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