Canal Street Fights Back?

How to fight back against the invasion of Hen and Stag Parties and heterosexual 'Zoo' visitors to Manchester's Canal Street?  We know it's a problem from the research of Skeggs and Moran among others, and we know that the Equality Act makes discrimination impossible.  Here's a rather brilliant solution currently on the doors at Via...

Marriage Equality?

There is a Yes Minister joke that the British Civil Service would take care of the hardest part of a proposal by putting it in the title.  So seems to have been the case when it comes to the publication yesterday of the government consultation 'Equal Civil Marriage: A Consultation'.

Many on the usual social media sites and LGB advocacy and campaign groups sprang to life seeking to motivate people into responding to the consultation.  I deliberately held off.  I wanted to see how the debate initially shaped up and - something I'm not convinced everyone who is commenting has done - read the actual consultation document.

Let's deal with the politics of this first off.  The Conservatives need this.  Ever since Cameron announced he was in favour of 'gay marriage' at the Conservative Autumn conference last year, it's been a done deal. It's win-win for Cameron.  He has a majority to pass a bill on same-sex marriage of some description.  if the party does it with just one or two dissenters, he can claim it to be a further sign that the party has genuinely changed.  Something that LGBTory - the LGB group of the party - has been keen to establish as a narrative.

Peter Bone

On the other hand, he may have a fight on his hand.  I don't think this is likely but let's explore the scenario.  In this situation, the comments of Peter Bone (the MP famous for introducing Mrs Bone at PMQs and looking like a man who once ran a football team and slept with Ulrika Johnson) would gain wider support among MPs and party activists in the same way that the NHS Bill did for for LibDems.  This would give Cameron a sort of 'Clause IV moment', defeating his party and able to demonstrate he is a true reformer.  Either of these scenarios also allow the Tories to knock on the head the developing narrative that the Lib Dems are a moderating influence on the coalition.  Tory strategists know this is an effective line and this would go some way to neutralising it.

This brings us to the Liberal Democrats themselves.  Long committed to this reform - and long before it was popular to be - this will probably appear on lots of LibDem election literature as an achievement.  Unfortunately, it doesn't take them any further forward in terms of support in off-setting tuition fees or NHS reforms, and the Tory strategy outlined above removes any possible 'credit' for the LibDems.  The one plus is it does enable them to do is to say that a minister in government has achieved something.  It's a questionable narrative but the party needs every crumb of comfort they can get.  The LGBT+ LibDems have however created a useful resource supporting the bill and telling people step-by-step how to respond to the consultation.

For the Labour Party, this is the natural extension of their reforms.  That narrative - which has not yet been clearly articulated - enables them to reach out to the New Labour voters who have deserted the party since 2010 (arguably in stages since 2001).

So politically, everybody - more or less - backs the idea of same-sex civil marriage.  It's a done deal.  The real politics and the real legal debate should therefore be about the nature of the law, and what it embraces.

Puzzlingly, few activists have engaged with this.  Peter Tatchell has called the consultation out on this issue but seemingly everyone else - notably Stonewall - are fighting what I would describe as the 'wrong war', and seeking to argue for a law on civil marriage.

Every Government figure I've seen on and in the media since the consultation emphasises the same line - this is about 'civil marriage' and not 'religious marriage'.  This is a bid to neutralise the challenge from religious lobbies - notably the Catholic Church  - to attack legal reform.   Don't be fooled by the media brouhaha, the Government need not cave in as dramatically as they have.

The proposals on the table - and this aspect is not up for debate as the consultation makes clear - prohibit religious same-sex marriages or to be more precise, do not change the present arrangements in that regard.

Let's revisit the overall aims of the legal reform, as set out by the Government:

• To remove the ban on same-sex couples being able to have a marriage through a civil ceremony.
• To make no changes to how religious organisations solemnise marriages 
• To allow transsexual people to change their legal gender without having to legally end their existing marriage or civil partnership

So, even if a religious institution wanted to solemise a same-sex marriage they would prevented from doing so by law.  The Government had two alternative approaches.  Firstly, they could have enabled religious institutions to choose not to conduct marriages.  However, as the Church performs a combined civil and religious ceremony, LGB activists could have argued that it was discrimination that only they were begin rejected by a particular church as a class (expect a legal case revolving around comparison to divorcees and so on).  So, the chance of a legal challenge down the line would be high and the churches would have seen this.   Not an attractive option for anybody.

The second option I would suggest, would have been to remove civil marriage powers from churches.  It avoids the discrimination both in the proposed provisions and the first option I just outlined.  It would upset many in faith groups, and would be a more radical or complicated message to convey to the public.  It would not stop churches performing religious ceremonies for whoever they wanted but the actual civil - legally binding - marriage would come into existence outside of a religious institution.  Although the harder road, I believe this would have been the better solution.

If it worked for them...

If you want a model of how this would look in reality, just look at the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.  A 'legal' ceremony followed by a religious one.  Legally, they became married in Windsor Registry Office but for the Queen and many, they became married in the Chapel at Windsor Castle.  This would be genuinely equal under law and would also remove any potential legal challenges.  I am sure that this is where we will eventually end up but it's a shame that all three parties are running scared of religious groups this time around.

Thanks to the government proposals on transgender marriage, it is now possible for someone legally defined as a male and someone legally defined as a female to enter into a marriage in a religious building and then for one of those individuals to transition so that there will be some individuals who are legally a same-sex couple and who married in a combined religious/civil ceremony.  Don't be fooled, these proposals create as many legal anomalies as they remove.

Speaking of which, the proposals also contain a paragraph (2.16) which will long be a focus for family law student seminars and tutorials in the coming years.  It states:

'Specifically, non-consummation and adultery are currently concepts that are defined in case law and apply only to marriage law, not civil partnership law. However, with the removal of the ban on same-sex couples having a civil marriage, these concepts will apply equally to same-sex and opposite-sex couples and case law may need to develop, over time, a definition as to what constitutes same-sex consummation and same-sex adultery.'

This is a polite way of saying that the law tends to think of consummation in terms of penile/vaginal penetration (although no orgasm or ejaculation is needed).   This paragraph in the consultation is the equivalent of lifting a giant rug, shoving half-baked proposals under it, and hoping that nobody will notice.  We did.  This could have significant implications for different-sex marriage and the Government knows that but doesn't want to get into that debate.  We should.

Adultery too will need to be re-visited and a sensible move would simply be to abolish it.  Anything else, and the Government will be lost in the midst of another legal mess.  Again, a potentially major reform for family law.

Speaking of half-baked botches, Let's turn to civil partnerships.  The proposals set out a way that people can 'covert' from a civil partnership to marriage and answers my question in previous posts about the continued presence of civil partnerships - they stay.  Hurrah!  Unfortunately, they remain for same-sex couples only, and in doing so fails to address the arguments of the ongoing Equal Love legal challenge.  That legal challenge will come and I can't understand why the Government isn't pre-empting such a challenge.

Paragraph 2.20 sets out another wonderful fudge:

'The Government is not considering opening up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples because we have been unable to identify a need for this. However, we appreciate that there are a number of views on this issue.'

How have they explored this need?  What constitutes a need?  If civil partnership ceremonies for same-sex couples fall below some mystery figure as a result of these reforms, will they then be abolished as there is 'no longer a need'?   Big questions with potentially hugely significant answers, but who is asking them?

This consultation is a significant document but it's formal questions are limited and fail to engage with the real difficulties.  That should not stop the big campaign and advocacy groups from questioning the Government.  Yet as things stand, we are failing to provide that scrutiny to these proposals.  The legal community similarly needs to wake up to the potentially half-baked and wide-ranging reforms that could come through as a result of these reforms with historic implications for marriage.

Read the full consultation here.

Professor Davina Cooper CIGS Annual Lecture 'Bringing back the bodies of the equality state'

Another event that readers may be interested in...


Professor Davina Cooper CIGS Annual Lecture 'Bringing back the bodies of the equality state'
21 March 2012 | Reception 16.30. Lecture at 17.00 | Seminar

Gender Studies Annual Lecture Title: Bringing back the bodies of the equality state, Professor Davina Cooper, Professor of Law and Political Theory at the University of Kent

Yorkshire Bank Lecture Theatre – Leeds University Business School 

Abstract: "Feminist work on bodies has tended to avoid the question of the embodied state. Yet, others continue to debate the body politic’s salience for understanding state-community relations and for understanding political sovereignty. In this lecture, I suggest the state’s relationship to bodies, particularly its own, is politically important since it affects how states are imagined, engaged with, and, ultimately, what they do. Focusing on the liberal state at one of its seemingly progressive contemporary junctures, this lecture explores the body work of national equality governance, drawing on a snap-shot moment of Britain in 2009-2010. Alongside the governmental body image institutional texts project, in which a set of discrete networked public bodies nestle in a wider economic and legal domain, I explore a more physical engagement with the state’s body, through the active citizenship of its public servants. Exploring active citizenship when it takes both overt and covert form, when it promotes dissent, and when it promotes a forceful, committed over-compliance, I consider what happens to the corporeal relationship between the state and its laboring public servants. Do state actors work through the body of the state or does the visibility accorded to transgressive public servants thwart state attempts to appropriate their labour and their bodies? Through these questions, and drawing on feminist body scholarship, the lecture considers the scope of active citizenship to advance a differently embodied state." Davina Cooper is a Professor of Law & Political Theory at the University of Kent (UK). Between 2004 and 2009, she was Director of the AHRC Research Centre for Law, Gender & Sexuality, and in the late 1980s was a local politician on the controversial London council, Haringey (on which this lecture also draws). Her publications include: Challenging Diversity: Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference (2004); Governing out of Order: Space, Law & the Politics of Belonging (1998); Power in Struggle: Feminism, Sexuality and the State (1995); and Sexing the City: Lesbian and Gay Politics within the Activist State (1994). She is currently completing a book on the transformative conceptual practices of everyday utopias.

Location Details Yorkshire Bank Lecture Theatre – Leeds University Business School. For a map showing the location of the Leeds University Business school please click here . The building is number 19 on the key. For more information and to book a place at the event please contact Matthew Wilkinson, The Centre Co-ordinator

Spate of New Legal protections in California

I previously blogged on the introduction of the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act in California but KPBS notes it's just one of a range of new laws that are coming into force in California and potentially transforming the lives of LGBT citizens.   These include:

California Gay Bullying Law or "Seth's Law," named after 13-year-old Seth Walsh, from central California, who killed himself in 2010 after years of bullying. The law forces schools to address bullying through mandatory policies.

The "Gay Divorce Law," which allows a gay couple married in California, but living in a state that won't grant them a divorce, the right to divorce in California.

The LGBT Equality and Equal Access to Higher Education Law, which is an anti-harassment law that applies to state universities and colleges.

The Transgender Non-Discrimination Law. It protects transgender Californians from discrimination with regard to employment, education and housing.

Exciting times.  Read more here.

Some People Are Gay...in Prison?

Feltham Young Offenders Institute appears to be in some hot water according to Pink News. They report that Prison staff at the Feltham Young Offenders Institute refused official recommendations to display positive images of gay and bisexual relationships to inmates, according to a report released today.

They don't include a link to the full report but it can be viewed here.   The report seems more positive on equalities than the picture painted by the Pink News Story.  Of greater concern for me was that young people didn't always have access to free telephone calls to their legal representatives but they did have relevant legal books in the library.  Seriously folks?  That's adequate for the demography likely to be needing advice?  (let alone a breach of legal rights).  

Anyhow, the fact prison officers resisted the display of the posters is disheartening but I suspect it came from a culture in which such posters  -it was specifically the Stonewall posters - might have led to increased bullying etc.  Feltham does, the report indicates, have issues with gangs to the extent of riots and in that environment the prison officers might think the Stonewall posters are inappropriate - for a host of reasons.  It doesn't necessarily indicate homophobia on their part.  I'd rather the posters were up, but this seems an area that the Inspectorate should have probed more, and groups such as the Howard League for Penal Reform should be less quick to condemn (as they do in the Pink News piece).

The report points to positive treatment of one trans inmate, stating:

'A transgender young person who arrived during the inspection was interviewed on the day of his arrival by the liaison officer to assess and address his needs. He was placed on a unit with a higher than average staffing level to address his support needs. Staff told us that they had previously put in place a programme of support for transgender young people, including the opportunity to wear suitable clothing for their preferred gender.'

On sexualities, the report concludes that:

'Some impressive work had been undertaken to support gay and bisexual young people and to raise awareness of issues among young people and staff.'

Hardly condemnation.  The report and the Pink News story point to the presence of a group - PRIDE - as a positive sign but many years of report writing made me question thesis action.  The report writes (and this bit is repeated in the Pink News report):

'A support group for gay young people, PRIDE, had been established which met whenever there were young people who wanted to attend it. All young people were told about it on induction, which provided an opportunity for young people to offer information about their sexual orientation if they wished.'

So, how often has it met? How many people attend? What do they do? How useful did people find it.  As currently phrased, this sounds like something that exists on paper but not in practical reality.

Read the full Pink news story here.

After Equality

Apologies for the shameless plugging but you might be interested in a piece I've had posted at the Huffington Post.  It was written a month ago and other writers - Suzanne Moore and Mark Simpson for example - have since tackled the same issue but this does try to knit together the debate on both sides of the Atlantic and ever brings my own unique approach (*cough*) to the subject of where now for equality law.  Check it out here.  Do please also feel free to post a comment on the original post.

Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities: Inaugural Lecture

North East based students, scholars and thinkers will be interested in attending this.  I would encourage my own students to attend - it will be relevant to your assessment!  I'll also be going along so hope to see some of you there.

Thursday 17th November
6:15 – 7.30pm Appleby Lecture Theatre
Durham University Science Site, South Road, DH1 3LE

We know that Durham has sometimes had the image of being something of a blue stocking among universities – well, not any more. On 17th November in Durham, the University’s new Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities is holding its inaugural lecture.

Titled ‘Equality, Diversity, Queer Theory and Children in the Modern Age’, the lecture will explore the issue of sexuality, queerness and children. It is being given by celebrated queer theorist, Professor Kathryn Bond-Stockton of the University of Utah. 

Professor Jo Phoenix is the Director of the new Durham-based Centre. She says: ‘The Centre for Sex, Gender, and Sexualities will be unique in the UK, so its creation is a break-through moment both for queer studies nationally and for the University. The Centre is going to shape, inform and influence the often contentious debates surrounding sexuality, gender, identity, equality and politics, while the fact that it is being created by what some might regard as a more traditional, establishment university shows how forward-thinking Durham really is.’

 Please arrive from 6.00 pm for registration. The lecture will start at 6.30 pm and will be followed by a drinks reception and nibbles from 7.30 pm. If you have colleagues or associates you think would be interested in attending, please let us know via your RSVP and we will be happy to include them on the guest list. Please note that places are limited and it is wise to reserve your place. RSVP to

JoPhoenix.csgs@durham.ac.uk by 10th November.

Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get errr...civil partnered

The Equalities Office (based within the Home Office) made international waves with a landmark announcement this week - yes, sons and daughters will have equal right to the throne.  It's curious what amounts to modernisation at times.  US networks - thrilled at the opportunity to show more Will and Kate footage - gave these tory prominence and looking at the Equalities Office press release pages you might think it's the only thing they've done this week.  It's not.

Pink News reported that the government has confirmed religious premises will, from the end of 2011, be able to seek approval as venues for civil partnerships.  The government doesn't need to pass a law to do this -despite the original Civil Partnership Act 2004 excluding religious premises as sites for civil partnerships.  Instead, the government will 'activate' through a regulation, section 202 of the Equality Act 2010.   It does not of course mean that religious organisations must offer their premises for such ceremonies but it means that they can - enabling groups such s the Quakers to begin offering these ceremonies.

The move creates a further layer of complexity to the marriage/civil partnership divide - a divide which the government may well sweep aside next year - and it will be interesting to see how this latest move evolves.