Wedding law in England and Wales is badly out of date.
We campaign for marriage to be equally open to all, regardless of religion or belief.
Time for one wedding law for all.
In England and Wales, different laws apply depending on whether a wedding is Anglican, Jewish, Quaker, another religion or not religious at all (a civil wedding or partnership).
This is unfair, confusing and absurd.
Most religious weddings must be held in a registered place of worship, while civil weddings and partnerships must take place in approved premises. Jewish and Quaker weddings can take place anywhere.
This system leads to inequality. Members of religions which don't have fixed places of worship, or don't use their places of worship for weddings, are disadvantaged. And members of nonreligious communities such as Humanism have no way of getting legally married according to their philosophical beliefs.
The process for a place of worship to register itself for marriage is much cheaper than for approved premises for civil ceremonies. This in turn contributes to the cost of civil marriages and partnerships.
Over 80% of opposite-sex marriages in England and Wales in 2022 were civil marriages. But only 16% of recognised wedding venues in England and Wales can hold civil marriages. The remaining 84% are religious venues.
While approved premises for civil weddings and partnerships must by law hold ceremonies for same-sex couples, this is not the case for places of worship. In 2022, only 2% of places of worship were registered for same-sex weddings. This considerably reduces the options for same-sex couples. Whereas opposite-sex weddings are in slow decline, same-sex weddings are increasing.
UPDATE: The Law Commission has now made its final recommendations on reforming wedding law on England and Wales. Please write to your MP in support of the recommendations...
Unregistered religion-only 'marriages'
The complexity of marriage law may contribute to the rise in couples who have religious 'wedding' ceremonies that are not legally-binding.
A signification proportion of Muslim couples are in an Islamic 'nikah' union lacking the full legal rights and protections of a recognised marriage.
Unregistered marriages can undermine women's rights in particular. If a woman in a nikah is 'divorced' suddenly, or against her wishes, she can be left homeless and without any money or assets.
The situation is made worse by sharia councils or 'courts' which dispense religious rulings on Islamic marriage, child custody and divorce. These are not courts of law but there are concerns some Muslim women, especially those not born in the UK or unable to speak English, perceive them as having real legal authority.
Sharia councils leave children vulnerable and discriminate openly against women. To seek a religious divorce a woman must gain permission from these almost entirely male councils, and there are reports of women being denied this request even in cases where they have faced abuse.
Reforming wedding laws will not solve these problems completely. But making wedding laws simpler and fairer can encourage couples to gain the legal protections of a registered marriage.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Tell your MP to support the Law Commission's recommendations for wedding reform.
2. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
NSS criticises Archbishops over clerical hostility to LGBT+ rights
Posted: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 11:34
The National Secular Society's Executive Director, Keith Porteous Wood, has criticised Church of England leaders for their record on gay rights after they spoke out on the subject.
Writing in the online Pink News, he said the Archbishops of Canterbury and York should be "judged by their actions rather than their words".
He was responding to a piece by Justin Welby and John Sentamu, written last week in the same magazine to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. Under the unedifying title 'Gay people are not more sinful than anyone else', the Archbishops wrote that "Sin is not a characteristic of a particular group of people".
Mr Porteous Wood argued that neither this, nor the numerous religious references in the original piece, were likely to cut any ice with the vast majority of the intended audience. Pink News is largely read by young LGBT+ people.
He said the piece "has been greeted with well-deserved cynicism" by many of the magazine's readers. The height of the Church's ambition appeared to be denouncing "diminishing and criminalising homosexual people" as "wrong", and not all of the Church agree even on that. Crucially they failed to even mention equal civil rights or statutory protection from discrimination for LGBT+ people.
He said the Archbishops were "hardly setting the bar very high" in stating that "diminishing and criminalising homosexual people is wrong". He criticised the Archbishops for not mentioning the "gratuitous hurt and indeed persecution" that Christianity had caused to LGBT+ people over the centuries, and for not referring to equal civil rights or statutory protections from discrimination.
Nor had they come clean about Church doctrine which "still holds that same-sex intimacy, even within a committed relationship, is sinful and 'to be met by a call to repentance'". He added that at least one member of the Church's General Synod is working internationally to retain laws criminalising homosexuality.
He also argued that the Church had become more hostile to gay rights in the last 50 years. Clergy opposing these rights had become "much more entrenched and outspoken", while its parishoners have become more liberal. Gay clergy in lawful same sex civil marriages have even been barred from jobs.
The archbishops claimed "This anniversary of the 1967 Act is one when the Church in this land should be conscious of the need to turn away from condemnation of people as its first response." Mr Porteous Wood responded that none of the bishops in the House of Lords voted for the same-sex marriage bill in 2013. They "turned out in record numbers to support a 'wrecking amendment' to it". Their response to civil partnerships legislation was similar.
He drew attention to the "anachronism" of the Westminster parliament being the only one to give bishops a seat as of right. He also highlighted how much more conservative the bishops had become, relative to society as a whole and even Anglicans in the pews. He argued that this is incompatible with being a national church. The NSS believes the Church should be disestablished.
He concluded by predicting the Church would face a humiliating climb down on same-sex marriage.
The National Secular Society has long campaigned for LGBT+ rights not to be undermined by religious demands.
Washington Supreme Court: Religious beliefs no excuse for a business to discriminate
Posted: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 10:47
The Supreme Court of the state of Washington has unanimously ruled that a florist cannot discriminate against same-sex couples, in a ruling welcomed by American secularists.
Two men sued a florists, Arlene's Flowers, after the proprietor said providing flowers for a same-sex wedding would be contrary to her religious beliefs.
They had been long-term customers of the florists, and Barronelle Stutzman, the owner and operator, knew that they were gay and in a long-term relationship.
Stutzman was described by the court as "an active member of the Southern Baptist church."
It was "uncontested" by the Supreme Court "that her sincerely held religious beliefs include a belief that marriage can exist only between one man and one woman."
She argued that anti-discrimination laws did not apply to her behaviour, and that if they did the statutes "violate her state and federal constitutional rights to free speech, free exercise, and free association."
Stutzman said that she would unable to do the flowers for the couples' wedding because of her "relationship with Jesus Christ".
One of the men, Curt Freed, said he was "very hurt and upset" following Stutzman's refusal and "deeply offended" that the couples' business was "no longer good business" just because his "loved one [did not fit] within [Stutzman's] personal beliefs."
Following media attention about the story and fearing protestors from groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church the couple abandoned plans for a ceremony with a hundred or more guests and had a much smaller ceremony at the their home with just 11 people in attendance.
Stutzman said this was the only occasion she had ever refused to serve a customer. Following this, she decided on an "unwritten policy" that the florists would not accept requests for same-sex wedding ceremonies. This was due to her conviction that "biblically marriage is between a man and a woman".
The court noted that she had served gay and lesbian customers for other orders unrelated to same-sex marriages.
The court summarised her view as believing "that participating, or allowing any employee of her store to participate, in a same-sex wedding by providing custom floral arrangements and related customer service is tantamount to endorsing marriage equality for same-sex couples."
She maintained that she would sell flowers in bulk or sell "raw materials" but that creating floral arrangements would be crossing over a line where her "imagination and artistic skill" would be used to "intimately participate in a same-sex wedding ceremony".
The court "emphatically" rejected her argument that providing the couple with alternative florists meant that no harm was done, and endorsed the couple's argument that the case "is no more about access to flowers than civil rights cases in the 1960s were about access to sandwiches."
The court concluded: "As every other court to address the question has concluded, public accommodations laws do not simply guarantee access to goods or services. Instead, they serve a broader societal purpose: eradicating barriers to the equal treatment of all citizens in the commercial marketplace."
Carving out a "patchwork of exceptions for ostensibly justified discrimination" would mean that purpose was "fatally undermined".
The ruling was welcomed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who commented: "Religious freedom is a fundamental American value. It guarantees us the freedom to believe, or not, as we see fit. It does not, however, grant us a right to use religion as an excuse to ignore laws that prohibit discrimination."
