My Lords, I too have put my name to this amendment. It is a narrow and transitional amendment and does not in any way affect the fundamental underlying purpose of this Bill. Marriage registrars carry out a particularly attractive job. On the number of occasions where I have been to a civil ceremony, I have watched, with mounting enthusiasm, the way in which the registrar has made the marriage ceremony a really important occasion. I assume—and, indeed, I hope, since this Bill will become law—that the majority of registrars will give the same enthusiasm and pleasure to the single-sex couple as I have seen them do in those services. I am about to go to yet another great-nephew’s wedding, which will be a civil ceremony.
However, when a number of registrars took the job, the idea that marriage would be between single-sex couples was not even a blink on the horizon. I can understand perfectly well that those who come in in future will take a job in which they recognise that they will marry everybody, whether that is two males, two females or a male and a female. For those already in the post, for the reasons that the noble Baronesses, Lady Cumberlege and Lady Williams of Crosby, have both put forward, this is a small and special group. It would be particularly sad if, having given to the minority in this country the right to marry in the same way as the majority, that we cannot recognise that there remains a minority who cannot take it. Are we to say that that minority, those who came into post before one ever thought there would be same-sex marriages, is not to be recognised at all?
As has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, what will these people do if they cannot marry but are ordered to do so? If this Bill will not permit them by the amendment to say no, will they have to resign? Will they get a job in this time of stringency and austerity in which we now live, when the job market is difficult? I ask the House to think about a small minority who would have had no idea that this would happen, and whose Christian beliefs would not permit them to marry the couples who will be able to marry by this Bill.