Quest

Quest Bulletin reported in the Spring 2011 issue that the coalition Government at Westminster had launched a consultation on civil partnerships on religious premises. In effect, following the introduction of the Equality Act 2010, the Government seeks to remove the ban on civil partnerships being held on religious premises. The consultation document issued in March 2011 made it clear that faith groups would be given the freedom to act as they wish in relation to registering civil partnerships on their premises and thus enable religious same-sex couples to formalise their relationship in a place of worship.

The then Chair, Peter Rodgers, asked Guy Torrance to draft a response on behalf of Quest. The summary of our response stated that the scope of the consultation and its proposals were too narrow in that faith groups might be protected from legal challenge in choosing not to allow their buildings to be used for civil partnerships but that government might itself be open to such challenge. The Quest response made clear its concern that Government may be seen to be legitimising discrimination by faith groups whilst those groups are fulfilling state functions (whether as to premises or persons). Currently the Catholic Church fulfils a state function when it registers marriages in its churches. Read more…