My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 22A and 27A. I am so sorry that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey, has departed because I was reminded during the course of the debate today that one of the shorter and most interesting aphorisms of William Blake was, “Damn braces: Bless relaxes”. Given the necessity for belt and braces which has been expressed by so many colleagues, perhaps it would have been apposite today. I, too, seek a blessing for the amendment that I would like to introduce.
The amendment would allow humanists to have a wedding fashioned to reflect their humanist beliefs. It would allow those marrying to have a celebrant who is himself or herself a humanist—one of their own kind. The amendment would also allow such humanist marriages to be open to both gay and heterosexual couples, which is consistent with the Bill, for which I am a strong advocate. Indeed, it would have allowed me and my wife, who have been happily together for 40 years, to have celebrated our own commitment and unshakeable love in a marriage of true minds. This amendment is, indeed, an affair of the heart, which brings heartache to none.
This amendment is in line with a succession of reforms over the centuries that have responded to inequalities of the law, or rather to growing sensitivity to such inequalities. The modern law started with Lord Hardwicke’s Act of 1753, but since then there have been 45 items of primary legislation that are still on the statute book, 27 of them in the present reign, as well as many that have been completely repealed. Many of them widen the choice of methods by which one can marry, gradually relaxing the original rule that virtually everyone had to marry at their parish church.
Today, any Christian denomination, or indeed other religion, can register its place of worship for the solemnisation of marriage. At the most recent count in 2010, there were in excess of some 30,000 registered places of worship. This total excludes the Church of England and the Church in Wales. They range from the Methodists with more than 7,000, the Catholics with 3,600, to more minor denominations such as the Unitarians with 176 and the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion with 15. They take in the main non-Christian religions. The Muslims have more than 900 places registered for marriage while devotees of Krishna are content with but one. Then there are the spiritualists with 323 places registered for marriages and there is the somewhat bizarre Aetherius Society with one place registered for weddings, whose website proclaims that its philosophy and teachings come largely from highly advanced intelligences from higher planes of Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, and that these cosmic masters, or gods from space, visit earth probably in flying saucers.
Every religious taste appears to be accounted for, but as the census reminds us, at least a quarter of us have no religion. What of us? Many of us are reconciled to settle for the one size fits all civil marriage introduced in 1836 in the most significant by far of those Acts that have since vanished from the statute book. Indeed, civil marriage by registrar now accounts for two out of every three marriages. For most people, it is perfectly satisfactory, but if you want to have a ceremony that reflects your own belief, then the registry office can be very unsatisfactory.
The fundamental restriction that it may not include any religious content now under the current laws of equality and human rights means that it may not either include on the part of the registrar or any other participant any content distinctive of a non-religious belief, such as humanism—added to which, of course, the presiding registrar may in fact be an ardent Christian, Muslim, or indeed a member of the Aetherius Society.
The most significant group by far of non-religious people in England and Wales who hold a positive non-religious belief are the humanists. They find it vexing that while marriages according to all religious beliefs are legally recognised, those conducted by humanists are legally invalid. A humanist ceremony may express their profoundest sentiments and commitment to each other, but it counts for nothing in the eyes of the law. To be legally married, you have to go off to a registry office and go through a second procedure.
Moreover, the British Humanist Association finds that there is a growing demand for its marriage ceremonies. The British Humanist Association will be known to many of your Lordships for its funeral ceremonies, which are highly regarded, to the extent that they are now copied with more or less success by funeral directors and even by some clergy. Its marriages, of which it conducts more than 600 a year, are notably even more special. They express humanist values and beliefs, but are individually shaped around the commitments that the humanist couple wish to make to each other in front of their families and friends. Some of your Lordships will have seen the eloquent testimonies from couples who have had such BHA weddings and how much they mean not only to the couples themselves, and to other humanists present, but even how highly they are regarded by their religious relatives who attend. If we want to underpin the importance of marriage in these changing times, one way is to make more marriages like these humanists ones. I speak as someone who has had the joy and honour of being a celebrant and conducting such a humanist marriage, albeit informally.
In order to clarify humanism and the kind of marriage we would want, I will describe what makes it distinctive. The marriage is conducted by a celebrant who shares the beliefs and values of the couple. The celebrant spends time with the couple prior to the marriage itself to know them better and better to shape the subsequent marriage. The marriage ceremony in general reflects specific humanist convictions; for example, that there is no supernatural side to this reality and that human beings in the here and now are the source of value and meaning. These are specific non-religious belief elements. Beyond the general reflection of humanist values that underlie the ceremony, the order of service is created
in line with the specific beliefs and values of the couple. This itself reflects a humanist conviction about the creation of meaning in human lives. The marriage is conducted in a place of particular meaning or significance to the couple.
Scotland is relevant only because it shows the pent-up demand for humanist marriages. Since they were legalised in 2005, humanist ceremonies have soared from a few hundred a year to approaching 3,000. In 2011, there were 2,846 humanist marriages, but only 1,729 Roman Catholic ones. Only Church of Scotland and civil marriages are more popular. In 2011, humanist marriages amounted to 8.5% of all marriages and 18% of all religion or belief marriages. Moreover, if one looks at the past few years, since humanist weddings became well established, the picture is striking. In the latest three years for which figures are available—2009 to 2011—the total number of marriages in Scotland has been rising again, by 1,611, with humanist ceremonies contributing 942 marriages, 58% of that increase. Humanists stand ready to boost the pattern and practice of marriage in this country.
It is difficult to think of any reason why England and Wales should be different from Scotland. I mentioned in passing that Ireland has recently legislated to recognise humanist marriages, that a similar change has occurred in Iceland, and that Norway, Ontario, Australia and New Zealand already have such humanist marriages.
In the other place, humanist marriage was strongly supported at the Report stage of the Bill but encountered an obstacle when the Attorney-General pronounced that the version of the amendment under debate there fell foul of the European Convention on Human Rights. That version mentioned humanists specifically and the Attorney-General ruled that it would give rise to claims by other non-religious belief organisations of discrimination. As it happens, the British Humanist Association has legal advice that no such claim could have succeeded. Be that as it may, my present amendment has been redrafted to be proof against any such objection and Matrix Chambers has provided the BHA with written advice to that effect.
The present draft refers not to humanist organisations but to those advancing a non-religious belief. It might be thought that this would open the field to bodies other than humanists—there have been silly scare stories in the press about Jedi weddings and the like—but in fact it is difficult to think of any other organisation with a belief system that can meet the criteria set out in the amendment.
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The British Humanist Association, which was set up in 1896 as the Union of Ethical Societies, has been running well established services offering humanist marriage for a long time. It trains, accredits, insures and provides continuing professional education for hundreds of celebrants throughout the country. These ceremonies attract a very high level of satisfaction—more than 95% of clients give them a five out of five rating. On the basis of extensive and impassioned testimony from couples who have had them, these weddings are profoundly valued as reflecting the beliefs of those who have been married and allowing them to have
ceremonies devised in collaboration with the celebrant to meet their own wishes. Many are equally as eloquent about how the need to have a legal registration of their marriages detracted from the magic of the occasion. One couple wrote:
“The registry office procedure was something we had to do, not something we wanted to do. It would have been wonderful not to have to do this simply to satisfy the legal requirement as it meant nothing of significance to us and was an additional expense and inconvenience”.
Such testimony, along with the Scottish experience, shows that there is a pent-up demand for humanist weddings. Reform is supported by the public. According to a recent YouGov poll, four times as many people supported legal recognition of humanist weddings as opposed it.
It is a reform that disadvantages no one. Its cost to the public purse is close to zero. In an age of equality, it removes an unnecessary barrier based on religion or belief and it will, in no small way, strengthen the institution of marriage. The British Humanist Association has had meetings with the Government Equalities Office. I pause to thank the Secretary of State in the other place for being particularly helpful and wanting to see this legislation through when it comes here. We have had discussions with the Ministry of Justice and the Church of England. I thank colleagues from the Church of England who have had the opportunity to go into discussions with the British Humanist Association to ensure that what comes before your Lordships is appropriate and useful. The British Humanist Association tells me that it is unaware of any objection from any of them that it does not believe it has now met in the current draft. None the less, I would be very happy to consider further changes on Report. I particularly welcome the advice of colleagues from around the House so that we can look at this again, if necessary, and pursue it further.
I will conclude with a quotation from a letter from a couple from south-east London who recently had a humanist marriage:
“A humanist wedding offered us the chance to make the wedding ‘ours’, it enabled us to construct our own vows and create a ceremony that felt immediately very personal to both of us and our guests, it also portrayed exactly what marriage meant to us and how we see our marriage growing in the future ... We arranged a special ‘legal’ ceremony for the day before … our 10 minute ceremony felt rather hasty and impersonal, it certainly didn’t leave me with any feeling of having just made an important commitment to my husband. It was, as they say, a piece of paper … I personally don’t see why our [humanist] ceremony should be any less valid than any other ... our guests would attest to it being one of the most emotionally meaningful ceremonies they’ve ever witnessed, [and to] feeling like they all now play a part in supporting our relationship”.
I beg to move.