LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – A prominent British barrister says that rulings in favor of marriage equality by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Appeal mean that British churches will soon be compelled to perform same-sex marriages, despite promises to the contrary by Prime Minister David Cameron.
Cameron’s government issued a consultation document last month that said a marriage equality law will “make no changes to religious marriages.” The document said that church marriages “will continue to only be legally possible between a man and a woman.”
Neil Addison, the director of the Thomas More Legal Centre in London, which represents religious and social conservative organizations in court, says this isn’t the case. “The Government will be obliged to permit same-sex marriage on religious premises on exactly the same basis as it permits heterosexual marriage,” said Addison.
“Certainly a good legal case can be made that any place or person who is registered to perform marriage must be willing to perform same-sex marriage on the same basis as they conduct heterosexual marriage since, in law, there will be no difference between the two,” he added.
Addison pointed to the recent decision in a European Court of Human Rights case involving two French lesbians which found that, although no country has an obligation to legalize marriage equality, once such a law is passed, the state must apply it equally to all citizens.
“Churches which perform heterosexual marriages will have to be willing to perform same-sex marriages and they will have no legal grounds to resist since the courts have determined that the ‘orthodox Christian view of marriage’ is not a ‘core’ part of Christian belief,” Addison noted.
