Religion and Same-Sex Marriage

For a legal status which has existed for less than twenty years, the law concerning same sex partnerships and religion has had a turbulent and somewhat confusing history. This chapter examines the story so far. The first part examines how the Civil Partnership Act 2004 originally ignored religion, copying the template of civil marriage. It will then chart how this approach fell apart with the introduction of religious civil partnerships. The second part looks at the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 that was enacted by building upon the existing structure for opposite sex marriage rather than using the opportunity to craft a modernised, rationalised and codified law on marriage. This has led to an increasingly complex legal framework as shown by the ‘quadruple lock’ that permits but does not oblige religious groups to conduct same sex marriages.