Belfast City Hall, in Northern Ireland, saw the first civil partnerships become law. However, in England and Scotland the Civil Partnership Acts will not allow gay couples to join until Wednesday. Rumours have suggested that some 700 homosexual couples would have formed civil partnerships by that time.
The new civil partnership law will give gay couples the same property and inheritance rights as married heterosexuals and entitles them to the same pension, immigration and tax benefits. However, unlike in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Canada it is not a marriage.
A statement released by the Evangelical Alliance in early December stated: “The Alliance believes there can never be moral equivalence between marriage and same-sex partnerships, even if legal equivalence is established.”
Don Horrocks, head of public affairs for the EAUK, said such a push for gay rights eventually takes away from the rights of those who may have a Christian perspective on marriage. He said, “It needs to be remembered that one group’s rights often involves another’s inequality.”
Another senior British clergyman has spoken out against the Civil Partnerships Act. Rev Peter Smith, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff said, “What the Government should do in terms of public policy is support marriage rather than undermine it. To put beside marriage an alternative or what appears to be a perfectly approved legal alternative lifestyle I think does not help the institution of marriage at all.”
Reports are saying that Britain is expecting some 16,000 homosexual couples to use the new law by 2010.The Alliance believes there can never be moral equivalence between marriage and same-sex partnerships, even if legal equivalence is established.
Evangelical Alliance UK
The Church of England over the past few months has come under heavy criticism for its compromise on the position bishops should take towards the new laws.
The Evangelical Council, which is the umbrella organisation for the evangelical groups within the Church, demanded in August that the Church’s attempts to compromise with the government’s civil partnerships legislation should be withdrawn immediately.
The council spoke out on 10th August 2005 against the decision by the Church of England Council of Bishops that clergy would be allowed to enter civil partnerships, just as long as they informed their supervising bishop that they would abstain from partaking in sexual relations with their partner.
