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Originally Posted by Boogster
Well, smother me with chocolate and sell me for 10p: I'm a right chump am't I?
I know all this stuff. I was simply going on this:
'But the judge told the couple they faced "an insurmountable hurdle" in trying to have a same-sex marriage recognised in English law.
Giving his ruling on Monday he said the majority of people and governments across Europe regarded marriage as an "age-old institution".
Marriage was, by "longstanding definition and acceptance", a formal relationship between a man and a woman primarily designed for producing and rearing children, he said. '
Forgive me, I simply couldn't be bothered to look up the stuff. Thanks for doing it for me and for the great lashings of condescension.
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You'll have to forgive me as well.
The insurmountable hurdle refers to s.11(c) Matrimonial Causes Act 1973:
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11:-- A marriage celebrated after 31st July 1971 shall be void on the following grounds only, that is to say -
(c) that the parties are not respectively male and female;
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The judgement was partially deciding why it wasn't incompatible with the Convention.
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Finally, apart from the insurmountable hurdle presented by s.11(c) to recognition of a same-sex marriage as valid in English law, there is abundant authority that an English court will decline to recognise or apply what might otherwise be an appropriate foreign rule of law, when to do so would be against English public policy: Vervaeke v Smith [1983] AC 145 at 164C. As already indicated, English public policy in the matter is demonstrated by s.11(c) of the MCA and the relevant provisions of the CPA.
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