As you may have already seen, last Monday Civil Partnerships became available in the UK. For those who haven’t been following this piece of legislation, it’s basically gay marriage — the rights and responsibilities are the same, just the name is a little different. It’s a massive step forward for the UK and I was proud to be part of the campaign that helped bring it about.
For those of you wondering, Elly and I are indeed one of the 80 couples already signed up with Newcastle City Council. We’re getting married in October next year and going to sign the papers and things this Wednesday. Amazingly, last week the Registry Office was TOO BUSY for any more appointments, because there was so much interest!
I must admit, I was a little worried about the public reaction. Civil Partnerships haven’t got an awful lot of press since the legislation was passed last year and I was worried there might be some backlash. When we were looking for wedding venues I was expecting people not to understand what I was talking about, or to get huffy when I explained. I was pleasantly surprised that the opposite was true — most of the wedding coordinators were both informed and enthusiastic. I suppose they might be having a bit of a wintertime boom thanks to all the pink pounds being spent, so perhaps that accounts for a lot of it.
Equally, though, when I called the Registry Office to get an appointment, the lady on the other end of the phone was virtually SELLING Civil Partnerships to me. She was asking me to make sure all my friends knew about it and that there were really valuable rights that they would get by entering into a partnership. It was really quite sweet.
The reaction that surprised me most, however, was actually on Monday itself. I needed to travel down to London and on the way to the airport in the taxi, the news headlines were on. The first headline was something along the lines of “Gay couples allowed to marry from today”. I immediately cringed, imagining that the taxi driver (who had just been telling me about the goldmine of a council house he was sitting on) might object. I was pleasantly surprised when his reaction instead was “About bloody time! Ridiculous that they haven’t been able to before now…”
Seems that somewhere along the way, a lot of the UK just grew up and got used to people being gay. I suppose that an island with the history of invasions and assimilations that this one has, is rather used to this kind of thing by now. I shouldn’t really have been surprised 😉
Comments (12) Permalink
December 12th, 2005 at 5:04 PM
congratulations!
December 12th, 2005 at 5:57 PM
I was thrilled when you told me last week, and just love the taxi driver’s reaction.
December 12th, 2005 at 5:58 PM
When you say Wednesday — is that just the licence application that you’re getting in way ahead of time, or is it something more substantial that requires a definite celebration of some kind? 😉
December 12th, 2005 at 6:07 PM
I missed this completely (I seem to go through patchy phases of observing the world in motion at the moment. It’s great that’s finally happened though.
Mostly though, congratulations to Elly and yourself.
December 12th, 2005 at 6:26 PM
All: Thanks very much 🙂
Scott: No, Wednesday is just the licence application. We need to have the date set in stone with the registrar before we can confirm the venue booking. The actual wedding will be in October 🙂
December 13th, 2005 at 12:26 AM
Congratulations! I’m very happy for you and for the UK.
December 13th, 2005 at 10:08 AM
Congratulamations!
Are you still having a gothic wedding?
December 19th, 2005 at 8:18 PM
congrats.
January 6th, 2006 at 9:14 AM
Hi there.Don’t know if you remember me.Was in matric with you@Rhenish in
gain.Well hope this gets 2 u.Will try again soon.I’m cool.Am in my final
year of medicine@UCT.Well hope you email me sometime.
By the By,congrats on bein engaged
January 17th, 2006 at 7:43 PM
Meri & Elly i wish you both all the best for the future, and congrats !
February 4th, 2006 at 4:08 PM
Honestly, it was much the same story in the US. The news always focuses on the
counter demonstrations & of course there’s been huge political backlash, but
the truth is everyone loves a wedding and most people do now accept gays
enough to be just as happy for them. People I know who were in line in
San Franscisco said everyone was honking their horns & waving & smiling as
they drove by.
The thing to understand about the US backlash is that only about half of the
country votes, so things don’t have to be popular with more than half the
population to be politically popular, they just have to be popular with
more than half the people who get off their butts and vote, and issues that
actually *make* some people get off their butts are all the better. This
is most obvious with the abortion rights stuff — well more than half the country
supports them (about 70%), but more than half of the federal legislature was elected
to get rid of them.
BTW: I’m having big trouble with the window for comments here, the margin doesn’t
wrap and goes into the stuff on the right of the page unless I use returns.
I’m using Mozilla on a mac.
February 13th, 2006 at 6:47 PM
All good things upon that taxi driver. I also love it when people surpise you in such a wonderful manner. Oh, and I’m still waiting for the backlash to happen here in SA, and it hasn’t arrived yet. My axe is sharp, though, so it’s all good.