Supreme Court has ruled today that in future heterosexual couples can have a Civil Partnership.
REBECCA Steinfeld and Charles Keidan are opposed to marriage which they say implies rights of one sex over another and successfully took their case for heterosexual men and women to be able to have a Civil Partnership just like same-sex couples all the way to the Supreme Court, achieving today a unanimous 5-0 decision from the Supreme Court Judges.
Rebecca Steindfeld said: “We have won our legal battle. The highest court in the land has stated unequivocally and unanimously 5-0 that there is no and has never been any justification for what they call a manifest inequality of treatment.
“Today we are a step closer to opening up Civil Partnerships to everyone, a measure that would be fair, popular and good for families and children across the country. We are elated, but to get this far Charlie and I have had to go toe to toe with the Government over four long years, confronting four equalities ministers across three courts. They have wasted taxpayers money to defend and maintain a blatant inequality. So please forgive us if today alongside the satisfaction we feel, we also feel a degree of sorrow and frustration at the delays, obstruction and official resistance we’ve experienced.”
Charles Keidan added: There are 3.3 million co-habiting couples in this country, many want legal recognition and financial protection, but cannot have it because they are not married or the choice of a Civil Partnership is not available to them. The law needs to catchup with the reality of family life in Britain in 2018.
Peter Tatchell, LGBT and human rights campaigner and Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation has supported the couple from the outset of their legal challenge in 2014.
He says: “This is a victory for love and equality. It was never right to deny opposite-sex couples the option of having a civil partnership. In a democracy, we are all supposed to be equal before the law. It is wonderful news that the Supreme Court has ruled against the government and in favour of equal civil partnerships.”
Peter Tatchell championed the right of opposite-sex couples to have a civil partnership from the moment Tony Blair’s government announced in 2003 that the option would be available to same-sex couples only, condemning it as “blatant discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
Speaking about today’s victory in the Supreme Court, Mr Tatchell said: “The ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships was discrimination and a violation of human rights. It is outrageous that the government was unwilling to legislate equality and that this couple were forced to go to court to get a basic human right – the right to be treated equally in law.
“It was never fair that same-sex couples had two options, civil partnerships and civil marriages, whereas opposite-sex partners had only one option, marriage.”
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