Simon Hughes, a liberal democrat in the Coalition, predicts that UK government will allow same-sex couples to have a “civil marriage” with the same legal status as marriages between a man and a woman.
Comments from Hughes follow moves by a liberal democrat minister to allow homosexual couples to have religious themes to their civil ceremonies.
Under the current UK rules governing gay marriage, same-sex couples can contract a civil partnership, but without the status of a formal marriage.
“It would be appropriate in Britain in 2010 to have civil marriage for straight people and gay people equally,” said Hughes.“The state ought to give equality. We’re halfway there. I think we ought to be able to get there in this Parliament.”
Hughes has been critical of some Coalition policies and has even gone as far as threatening to reject part of the UK government’s budget package in light of his liberal views.
Earlier this month, Lynne Featherstone, equalities minister of the UK, said the Coalition would consider LGBT couples to marry with religious themes in civil ceremonies. But the full quality that Hughes advocates for is more than that, although he insists change would be limited to civil marriages, without placing an obligation on religious groups to marry LGBT couples.
