EHRC recommends changes to Marriage law in Scotland

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (Scotland) has issued this press release: New Scottish Government called upon to address Equal Marriage for same sex couples.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission Scotland today launched a new report calling for access to equal marriage for same sex couples in Scotland. The report is a result of a symposium recently held by the Commission to investigate perceived barriers to equal marriage and suggest ways forward for legislators.

Scotland currently has a segregated family law system in which marriage is available only to mixed-sex couples, and civil partnership only to same-sex couples.

In England and Wales, the UK Government has announced public consultations on proposals to hold civil partnerships on religious premises and to open up civil marriage to same-sex couples and civil partnership to mixed-sex couples. However, because marriage and civil partnership are devolved issues, these proposals apply to England and Wales only.

The report calls upon the Scottish Government to consider these disparities and to take steps to bring about equal access to marriage in Scotland. The evidence and research contained within the report aims to inform their deliberations…

The EHRC report is available here: Equal Access to Marriage: Ending the segregation of same-sex couples and transgender people in Scotland. (PDF)

Posted by Simon Sarmiento on Thursday, 17 March 2011 at 12:45pm GMT

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Thanks to Simon Sarmiento of ‘Thinking Anglicans’ for making this information available on his UK web-site.

 

Like the Church of England, the Scottish Episcopal Church will probably soon be faced with a similar question about whether or not to allow Same-Sex Couples to be married on church premises in that country. It may be that, just as Stirling University, in Scotland, has now teamed up with the Think-Tank ‘Ekklesia’ to enable discussion on a new web-site (see my previous article on ‘kiwianglo’) of the sychronicities between religious and secular questions, Scotland may become a new fountain of open and inclusive discussion in the field of Human Rights and Social Justice for the LGBT community.

 

Father Ron Smith, Christchurch