Civil partnership conversion to same-sex marriage: religious content

In an earlier post we reported that concerns had been raised by Baroness Thornton, (Lab), regarding the bureaucratic nature of the process by which civil partnerships would be converted to a same sex marriage, and the requirement that these could only be carried out by a senior registrar.  As a consequence, the draft Statutory Instruments[1] which were due to be debated on 29 July, were withdrawn with an undertaking that revised versions would be tabled for debate in the autumn.  In response to a subsequent question by Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab) [30 July 2014 Vol 755 Column 1583], Baroness Northover said [emphasis added]

We are indeed determined that the regulations will be in place by 10 December so that civil partnerships can be converted to marriages. As the noble Lord will remember, in the consultation prior to the Act, the emphasis that came through from people feeding in their views on this was that they wanted to make sure that their civil partnership was properly marked and could be translated into an equal marriage. They wanted that to be as straightforward as possible with as few hurdles as possible. That was what was built into the Bill. Continue reading