| It's 10 years since same-sex weddings first took place in the UK, a symbolic moment that changed the lives of millions of people up and down the country. After a long struggle for equal rights over hundreds of years, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 introduced same-sex marriage to England and Wales. | |
| At midnight on March 29 2014 the very first same-sex couples tied the knot in many beautiful ceremonies. Gay marriage was legalised in Scotland later in December 2014, and because of years of opposition and heartless vetoes from the DUP, Northern Ireland didn't follow suit until January 13 2020, during the time the Stormont Assembly was suspended. |
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Opposition to same-sex relationships goes back to the 19th Century and was rife in the 1830's. Two gay men, James Pratt and John Smith, were hanged for sodomy and buggery in 1835, although they were the last such executions in England. They had been arrested in the Borough of Southwalk for a crime which at the time was thought of as being unspeakably heinous. Even in the official records of the Old Bailey where their trial took place, the clerks didn't write out the full words of what it was James and John were tried for. It just said "b-g--ry". It was quite common, the newspapers of the time referred to an "unnatural offense" or "the offense with no name". OutUK featured their story as told in Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant's latest book "James and John".
Most countries had never executed anyone for acts of homosexual sex, some countries stopped doing it centuries before. So we do have to ask, why were we still doing this in 1835? There was an extraordinary taboo at this time. Previously most men when they met used to kiss one another, just as they do in many countries around the world, but many British men were so obsessed that they might even be thought of as homosexual, they no longer kissed and just shook hands - which is of course what most British men still do today. | |
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It was just 30 years later in 1866 that the very idea of the opposite-sex marriage definition was first introduced. It was the the case of Hyde v. Hyde and Woodmansee, a polygamy trial, and during it the judge Lord Penzance ruled: “Marriage as understood in Christendom is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others.”
By 1889 The Cleveland Street Scandal then made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. OutUK also has a separate feature all about this extraordinary case of a police raid on a London gay brothel, where a number of aristocratic clients were arrested including Lord Arthur Somerset. The Prince of Wales’s son Prince Albert Victor and Lord Euston were also part of the scandal, as were several serving Tory MPs and Peers. |
Prince Eddy, second in line to the throne, and widely presumed to be the reason for
the establishment cover-up of those involved in the rent boy scandal.
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All forms of gay sex and by implication same-sex relationships were outlawed and the cause of much discreditable behaviour and malicious gossip. Just a few years after Cleveland in 1895 Oscar Wilde was tried for gross indecency for his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, and was sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour. The battle for gay rights had been lost, and remained off the political agenda for decades to come.
Gay Life was forced undercover and only became slightly more visible after the First World War. By the 1930's there were a few haunts in London such as the upstairs bar at the Trocadero, one of the the capital's most famous variety clubs in Piccadilly. Men would ask around if someone they liked were "musical" or by the late 30's & 40's "if he was so?" There were many gay men who took tea at one of the Lyons Corner Houses, or in bars like JB's, a big smoky bar just off Leicester Square which was kept by a Jewish ex-boxer named Jack Bloomfield. Other gay bars at the time used for picking up service personnel included The Bunch of Grapes on the Strand, which was nearly always crowded with sailors and a fine pub called The Pakenham in a pretty building in Knightsbridge which was always full of guardsmen in scarlet. It was a risky business, particularly if you were paying a sailor or guardsmen for his time, as all homosexual acts were against the law. | |
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By the end of 1954, in England and Wales, there were 1,069 gay men in prison for homosexual acts, with an average age of 37. Lesbians at the time were not actively criminalised.
In order to curb these rising figures, one Labour MP, Leo Abse, and a Conservative peer, Lord Arran, put forward proposals to humanise the way in which UK law treated gay men by introducing The Sexual Offences Bill. The Labour Government finally showed support for Lord Arran’s proposals as it was widely viewed that criminal law should not penalise gay men for their sex lives, given that were already the object of much ridicule socially. |
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The Bill received Royal assent on 27 July 1967 after an intense late night debate in the House of Commons. Margaret Thatcher was one of the few Tory MPs at the time to vote in favour of its passing. The 1967 Act did not extend to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, where all male homosexual behaviour remained illegal.
The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was a name given to a number of gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, just after the Stonewall riots, in which police raided the famous Stonewall Inn - the birthplace of Pride movements all around the world. In the UK, the GLF had its first meeting in the basement of the London School of Economics on 13 October 1970, and within a year or so, the group was holding regular weekly meetings of up to 300 people. Gay Liberation Front (GLF) member Peter Tatchell, together with colleagues and members of the newly formed OutRage! organised the first challenge to the ban on same-sex civil marriage in the early 1990's. As part of the campaign, five same-sex couples filed marriage licence applications at Westminster Register Office in London. Although they were refused, this was as Peter Tatchell called it at the time "the opening shot in the long campaign for equal marriage." May 1997 saw a landslide victory for the Labour Party. Tony Blair was the new Prime Minister. The Civil Partnership Act was passed in 2004 and same-sex couples were given the same rights and responsibilities as married opposite sex couples in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. | |
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We hadn't achieved equality, but it was an enormous step-forward for many same-sex couples in the UK. "Civil Partnerships were an important advance," Peter Tatchell wrote, "but not good enough."
Peter Tatchell launched his "Equal Love" campaign in 2011 with an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. It was a bid to end sexual orientation discrimination in marriage and partnership law. He asked people to write to their MP's saying, "I ask you to consider how you would feel if you were banned by law from marrying the person you love. I’m certain you’d feel upset and offended." In response the then Prime Minister David Cameron finally announced in October 2011 that the Government would legalise same-sex marriages before the next General Election. |
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| The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was introduced into the House of Commons on 24 January 2013. The Bill was not without its staunch opposition, however. Tory MP Peter Bone suggested the Church of England reply to the Government’s consultation on equal marriage on the basis that it is "completely nuts". Peter Bone was recently suspended from the House of Commons after the Commons regulator found that he had repeatedly hit and verbally abused a member of his staff, often asked him for massages and on one occasion put his bare genitals in the other man's face. He was subsequently recalled by his constituents, and the resultant by-election was lost by the Conservatives to Labour. | |
| There were many vocal opponents to the new Bill who tried to introduce wrecking amendments such as "belief in traditional marriage" as a clause. However on 15 July 2013, the Bill passed through the House of Lords, and went on to a third reading in the Commons. It was welcomed by Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband. The first same-sex weddings were set to take place in England and Wales at the end of March 2014. |
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Peter McGraith and David Cabreza from North London had been partners for 17 years before they tied the knot at one-minute past midnight on 29 March 2014, making them the first same-sex couple to marry in the UK. Peter Tatchell was a witness at the wedding.
Prime Minister David Cameron said: "Any marriage takes work, requires patience and understanding, give and take – but what it gives back in terms of love, support, stability and happiness is immeasurable. That is not something that the State should ever deny someone on the basis of their sexuality. When people’s love is divided by law, it is the law that needs to change." | |