ABSTRACT
The influence of religion in a decade of UK parliamentary debates about same-sex civil partnership and marriage legislation could be regarded as both marginal and declining. Parliamentarians have rarely engaged in faith-based moral condemnations of homosexuality and there has been a general absence of explicit religious hostility to the development of some partnership rights for same-sex couples. The chapter examines within context of the legislative settlement; religion has played a fundamental role in shaping the legal landscape. The chapter argues, the MSSCA 2013 maintains a fundamental difference in English law between opposite-sex couples who have an effective right to solemnise a marriage in a Church of England parish church and same-sex couples who do not. The religious protections in the MSSCA 2013, can be viewed as a monument to religious hostility and intolerance of homosexuality. During its enactment, the Government described the legislation as not just about allowing same-sex couples to marry [but] about protecting and promoting religious freedom.
