Equal Marriage Rights

<body> <p align="center"><font color="#800080">Ideally this page uses frames, but since your browser doesn't support them here is just the main text of the page.</font></p> <p align="center"><img src="images/ERMmedium.gif" alt="Equal Marriage Rights" align="center" vspace="2" WIDTH="560" HEIGHT="68"></p> <div align="center"><center><table border="1" cellpadding="5" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" bordercolorlight="#FFFFFF" bordercolordark="#FFFFFF"> <tr> <td align="center" nowrap valign="middle" width="100" bordercolor="#800080"><p align="center"><a href="http://equalmarriagerights.org/MainDefault.html" target="rbottom"><font face="Trebuchet MS" color="#800040"><strong>Home</strong></font></a></td> <td align="center" bordercolor="#800080" nowrap valign="middle" width="100"><p align="center"><a href="http://equalmarriagerights.org/MainBackground.html"><font face="Trebuchet MS" color="#800040"><strong>Background<br> to our case</strong></font></a></td> <td nowrap valign="middle" align="center" width="105" bordercolor="#800080"><p align="center"><a href="http://www.equalmarriagerights.org/MainSupport.html"><font face="Trebuchet MS" color="#800040"><strong>Support<br> for our case</strong></font></a></td> <td nowrap valign="middle" align="center" width="100" bordercolor="#800080"><p align="center"><a href="http://equalmarriagerights.org/MainMedia.html"><font face="Trebuchet MS" color="#800040"><strong>Media<br> Reports</strong></font></a></td> <td width="100" bordercolor="#800080" valign="middle" align="center"><p align="center"><a href="http://equalmarriagerights.org/MainLinks.html"><font face="Trebuchet MS" color="#800040"><strong>Links</strong></font></a></td> <td align="center" nowrap valign="middle" width="100" bordercolor="#800080"><p align="center"><a href="http://equalmarriagerights.org/MainContact.html"><font face="Trebuchet MS" color="#800040"><strong>Contact<br> Us</strong></font></a></td> </tr> </table> </center></div><p>We are a British same-sex couple who legally married in Canada in 2003. With the support of the human rights organization Liberty, we are seeking a declaration of the validity of our marriage in the UK. The High Court hearing will start on 6 June 2006.</p> <p>For the first two years of our marriage, it had no legal recognition at all in our home country. When the Civil Partnership Act became law (December 2005), it was automatically treated as a civil partnership.  Any different-sex couple married in Canada would have had their marriage recognized as a marriage in the UK from the outset. We believe that to treat same-sex couples differently from heterosexual couples in this way is deeply discriminatory. </p> <p>Our lawyers will argue that any failure to recognize the validity of our marriage is a breach of our rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.  Although our case calls specifically for the UK government's recognition of our valid civil marriage abroad, it has far-reaching implications for lesbian and gay equality and human rights more generally across Europe.</p> </body>