My Wobbly Weblog

I found an interesting article about a British lesbian couple, Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson, both academics.  They were married in British Columbia, Canada in 2003 shortly after the marriage of same sex couples became legal there.  On returning to the UK, they were surprised to find that their marriage had no legal status!  Two years later, when the Civil Partnerships Act was passed, their marriage was automatically recognised as a civil partnership, but still not as a full marriage.  They have launched a test case in the British Courts to try and get their marriage recognised as such, but have so far been unsuccessful, their case having been rejected by the High Court in 2006.

The page on Wikipedia includes details of both women’s careers and publications and a link to their campaign website.

The news story which caught my eye was the one about Sark, which has just held its first ever democratic elections, ending centuries of feudal rule.  Apparently the inhabitants of Sark were quite happy to continue living in what was effectively a dictatorship, but those pesky bureaucrats in Brussels went and forced them to start holding elections.