Is the Bishops’ policy on civil partnerships sustainable?

Oct 9, 2018 by

Is the Bishops’ policy on civil partnerships sustainable?

By Ian Paul, Psephizo. The House of Bishops’ position on civil partnerships and same-sex sexual relationships is defined by three statements. The first is Issues in Human Sexuality, published in 1991 as a ‘discussion document’. When it was published, it had very mixed reactions, and I remember very clearly our whole-college debate about it in the college chapel when I was in training. It makes slightly awkward reading now, not least in its frequent use of the term ‘homophile’ which has fallen...

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Why Theresa May the parson’s daughter is so keen to kill off marriage

Oct 8, 2018 by

Why Theresa May the parson’s daughter is so keen to kill off marriage

By Peter Hitchens, MailOnline. When will people grasp the difference between what the Tory Party says it is, and what it actually is? It is not as if it tries hard to hide it. Here is a clue. It is not conservative at all. It is a machine for obtaining power. It would cheerfully guillotine the Queen in Trafalgar Square if it thought that by doing so it could keep or gain office. That is why it has spent the past 20 years becoming more Blairite than New Labour. It helps to pay attention. Last...

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Civil partnerships: Law to change for mixed-sex couples

Oct 2, 2018 by

Civil partnerships: Law to change for mixed-sex couples

from BBC News: All couples in England and Wales will be able to choose to have a civil partnership rather than get married, Theresa May has announced. The move, which follows a Supreme Court ruling, will give mixed-sex couples and their families the option of greater security, the government said. And it will address the “imbalance” that allows same-sex couples to choose, but not mixed-sex couples. A couple who campaigned for the right said it was a “major step”...

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Civil partnerships in crisis: More unions were dissolved than made last year (and are breaking up at three times the rate of marriages)

Aug 17, 2018 by

Civil partnerships in crisis: More unions were dissolved than made last year (and are breaking up at three times the rate of marriages)

by Steve Doughty, Mailonline: The number of civil partnerships dissolved last year was higher than the number formed by gay and lesbian couples, official figures showed yesterday. In 2017, the unions of 1,217 couples were dissolved, a legal process similar to divorce for married couples. In the same period, there were only 908 new civil partnerships. The annual total has dropped by nearly 85 per cent since same-sex couples were given the legal right to marry in 2014. The level of dissolution...

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Civil Partnership injustices

Jul 25, 2018 by

Civil Partnership injustices

by Catherine Utley, Mailonline: You may not remember the story about the Burden sisters. Both unmarried, they lived their lives in a house in Wiltshire inherited from their parents. Good, kind, dutiful people, they devoted themselves to looking after a succession of elderly relations in their home. But as they grew old, they grew worried. They began to fear about what would become of the surviving sister after one of them died. Especially, they feared for what would become of their jointly...

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Civil partnership: a hollow institution

Jul 8, 2018 by

by Jon Holbrook, spiked: The Supreme Court ruled last week on an issue that pitted individual rights against collective interests. Arguing for more individual rights were two claimants, Charles Keidan and Rebecca Steinfeld, who wanted to enter a civil partnership, an institution not open to heterosexual couples. The claimants’ arguments were rooted in their wants. They did not want to get married. They argued that the right to enter a civil partnership should be extended to them because it...

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