So, now that Civil Partnerships are legal, having received Royal Assent on 18 November, we started planning for our wedding. We’d been engaged for quite some time already and so were hoping that we could have the big day sometime at the beginning of October 05. I started ringing round local councils, to find out when the ceremonies would start. After the events in America, where I understood they basically started happening immediately, I thought that planning for 11 months after the law was passed was quite reasonable.
Not so, it appears — the people at Bath register office kindly helped me contact the General Register Office (who haven’t got back to me yet); whereas the lovely people at Newcastle’s Register Office (who, amusingly, kept calling them same-sex marriages) assured me that we could have a commitment ceremony any time, but unfortunately the Civil Partnership ceremonies would only be available from November 05 at the earliest. Apparently the GRO needs to reorganise centrally to accommodate the new arrangements and various changes to financial & tax law need to be made.
I’m sure that many long-term campaigners in the UK and abroad will tell me that a year is nothing in the context of the overall struggle and I take their point — but I’m still quite sad to have to delay again.
Comments (2) Permalink
January 7th, 2005 at 11:48 AM
I know — everything seems to take forever, doesn’t it? I was trying to establish the other day whether the clauses of the Adoption and Children Act that allowed gay couples to jointly apply had taken force yet, and couldn’t find a definitive answer anywhere. Even generally authoratitive sources still had “expected sometime in 2004” on their websites 🙁
With the proposed cutbacks in civil service numbers, I can’t really see this country’s (lack of) speed in introducing new public services improving, somehow…
In the grander scheme of things, you’re right — a year isn’t very long at all. But as you know, the legislation is designed for couples to share in a greater security and a better life, and it’s immensely frustrating that those changes can’t start straight away.
PS: Thank you *ever* so much for the books!
January 7th, 2005 at 4:07 PM
I suppose that it’s alright, because at least you know they’re trying to do it properly, but it is quite annoying 😉
And you’re ever so welcome for the books — thank you for your sites!