All marriages are equal. But some are still more equal than others
“Equal marriage” came to England and Wales late last month, but legally, culturally, locally and globally, the fight for equality is far from over. By Alex George
From the media’s ticker tape parade, you’d be forgiven for believing that same-sex marriage marked the finish line in the fight for LGBT equality in the UK, but beneath the rainbow confetti lays the unfortunate truth — it’s not.
As Elton John and David Furnish recently discovered when they were forced to postpone their wedding, under the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 there is no mechanism to convert a civil union into a marriage. There isn’t even a date set for its enactment — the government are still trying to put a system together. Presently, couples must dissolve their civil union before they are able to then marry — a costly, inefficient, and hardly romantic pre-wedding process.
The act also introduced a ‘spousal veto’ whereby a trans individual’s spouse is required to consent to the legal recognition of their new gender. The idea was to prevent an opposite-sex marriage from turning into a same-sex marriage without their consent, but the reality is that spouses are able to unilaterally delay a transition pending a divorce. What the spousal veto really highlights however is the disparity between a same-sex marriage and an opposite-sex marriage. There’s this idea that individuals need some kind of legal protection from ending up in a same-sex marriage… if they’re truly equal, what’s the big deal?
Even setting these gaping holes aside, legal equality and factual equality are two very different things — allowing same-sex couples to marry doesn’t mean that, overnight, LGBT individuals will be free from harassment on the street, or discrimination in the workplace.
Then of course, there’s everywhere else. Scotland has legalised same-sex marriage, but it has yet to enter into force. Northern Ireland’s government is currently content with civil partnerships and there seems no movement to change this.
Meanwhile, countries like Uganda are moving in the opposite direction, having recently — and infamously — introduced life sentences for convicted homosexuals. Britain emptily threatened “consequences”. The Netherlands withdrew a £6m investment in their judiciary — they didn’t want to financially support an institution persecuting homosexuals. Denmark and Norway redirected aid intended for the Ugandan government to NGOs, while Sweden outright froze all aid to Uganda. The United States — themselves hardly a beacon of light, the Supreme Court having to force fourteen states to reverse their prohibitions of various same-sex sexual acts as recently as 2003 — have reduced aid to Ugandan organisations that supported the law and stopped a $3m tourism programme. The United Kingdom just sat on its hands.
It may paint a bleak picture, but while same-sex marriage in England and Wales is a landmark to be celebrated, it’s by no means the chequered flag.
Originally published at abstractmag.com on April 19, 2014.
