'Will You Civil Partnership Me?'
Apologies for going on about it – but Civil Partnerships are here! Ironic perhaps that Belfast, which is pretty backward about such things, was the setting for the first ceremony. Northern Ireland was of course, typically, the last part of the UK to legalise homosexuality, as recently as 1982. Media coverage was generally positive.
Protesters gathered at City Hall, with the trailer saying ‘Repent therefore and be ye converted’, which premiered at Belfast Pride this year. Way to mark a civil partnership dude. Some choice crowd members mocked the protesters (I bet they loved that) with signs that said ‘The earth is flat’. It probably was the last time those protestors looked up from their bibles.
Of course, this wasn’t technically the first ceremony, a terminally ill cancer sufferer was given special permission to wed his partner early in a ceremony held in a hospice in Sussex. Matthew Roche, 46, died on Tuesday 6th December - just a day after his and his partner, Christopher Cramp held their partnership ceremony. A sobering thought, and one that begs for me to quote:
“Love like there’s no tomorrow”
All the best to Grainne Close and Shannon Sickles, and to everyone else undergoing the ceremony in the next few days.
Posted by straighttalker05 @ 6:57 PM::
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2 Comments:
i have been practically in tears at the metro thi week, with all the coverage (mainly pmt), but i find it so upsetting that the religious right feel that it is perfectly acceptable to picket someone's wedding.
and comments like "ordinary folk will be revolted by pictures like these" infuriate me. we may be getting closer to equality, but its not close enough.
Thanks for the comment c'lam.
If you put it really simply, they were picketing someones wedding. Totally absurd yes. If only they would realise that. But then, I guess they don't get out much.
I have seen them protesting at Pride. While I don't like it, they do have a right to have an opinion, which is that the gay pride parade should not go ahead. Protesting at the gate's of someone's civil partnership/wedding is another matter.
If their 'religion' forbids them from allowing a christian marriage of same sex couples, OK. But this is not a religious ceremony - it's the law now.
I think Ms. Sickles and Ms. Close were a credit to the LGBT community, and very brave to face the media, sacrificing their own day that others may enjoy theirs free from contraversy.
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