Dear
Friends,
You
will probably have heard that this week the Government issued a response to its
‘Equal Civil Marriage' consultation and announced plans to introduce a Bill to
allow same-sex couples to marry.
The
Minister for Women and Equalities, Maria Miller MP, described receiving ‘a
record' 228,000 responses to the Government consultation earlier this year.
However, we were extremely disappointed that despite previous assurances
to do so, the Government had chosen not to include in this total of
consultation respondents the 500,000 people who signed the Coalition for
Marriage petition by the June deadline. Using this lower figure the
Government was able to announce that a majority of respondents (53%) were in
favour of redefining marriage while 47% were against. Of the 228,000
responses to the consultation, 132,000 were anonymous submissions through the
Home Office's online response form which could have been made multiple times,
by anyone anywhere in the world. Using such an anonymous system casts
doubts over the credibility of the consultation results on an issue of such
importance.
Mrs
Miller described a ‘quadruple lock' which she said would ‘protect
religious organisations' but we have very real concerns that the proposed
safeguards will not be sufficient if cases are brought before the European
Court of Human Rights. Recent rulings from Strasbourg have declared that if a
member state decides to allow same-sex marriage, but treats homosexual married
couples differently from heterosexual married couples, it could be challenged
under European human rights law. Legal experts have questioned the
strength of the Government's assurance that with proper drafting ‘the
chance of a successful legal challenge through domestic or European courts is
negligible'. It is not certain that challenges wouldn't emerge on
the basis of the blanket ban on clergy of the Church of England or whether
individual ministers could be prevented from performing same-sex marriages.
The
battle to uphold marriage is far from over and it is certainly one we can still
win. CARE will continue to work hard on your behalf with the Coalition
for Marriage to defend the legal definition of marriage as the voluntary union
for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. We will
keep you updated with future developments in Impact Direct and you can read
more detailed analysis of the Government's announcement here.
Thank
you for standing with us.
Nola
Leach
Chief Executive
