Now that is not the sort of headline you’d expect to find splattered across the front page of the Daily Mail. But in light of Lynne Featherstone’s announcement at Lib Dem Autumn conference about extending civil marriage rights to same sex couples all the reverse will be brandied about.
However, there has been a recent report from the Office of National Statistics that does show that those in same sex civil partnerships are less prone to separate than those in mixed sex marriage. After five years while 5.5% of marriages will have ended in divorce only 2.5% of civil partnerships have been annulled.
These are of course only early figures as civil partnerships have only been in place since 2005. However, there is a significant gap in the number that had broken up between the two over that period.
Sadly of course the extension of marriage rights is only to a civil marriage and not going to allow faith groups that wish to do so to allow religious same-sex marriage. But the announcement has led to the church groups getting up in arms about marriage. They are saying that allowing ‘promiscuous’ homosexuals to get married will ruin the sanctity of marriage. The figures above show that it he men who cleave to another man or the women who cleave to another woman are more likely to still be together in partnership and union than the men who are cleaved to women.
LGBT Lib Dems Northern Ireland 