My Lords, I move the amendment standing in my name and in the names of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and my noble friends Lady Williams of Crosby and Lord Lea of Crondall—if a Cross-Bencher may be allowed to have noble friends in all parts of the House.
What are the purposes of this amendment? The preamble makes it clear that it is limited to legislation regulating or relating to marriage. The primary purpose of the Bill is, I take it, to enable same-sex couples to be married, to enjoy the same rights and privileges and be subject to the same laws, duties and obligations as married man-and-woman couples already enjoy and are subject to. On Monday, the Minister said that,
“there is one institution of marriage and we are opening the door to it … There will be only one door and all couples will be invited to walk through it”.—[Official Report, 8/7/13; col. 33.]
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The first subsection of the proposed new clause supports and restates that purpose. The institution of marriage will be like a club, in which all lawfully married couples, whether in same-sex marriages or in man-and-woman marriages, will be equal members enjoying all the privileges and pleasures afforded by the club and accepting the rules of the club and the duties and obligations of membership.
Once the Bill reaches the statute book, there will be, within the single institution of marriage, two forms—or “types”, as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, said just now—of marriage. There will be a high degree of uniformity within the institution between the two forms of membership. However, as in any club, not all members will be exactly alike. There will be some fundamental physiological and biological differences that all of us recognise and understand and which no human legislation can ever completely smooth over or eradicate. We should be doing the cause a disservice if we were to pretend that it will or might be otherwise.
The amendment is intended to provide for the greatest possible degree of uniformity in legislation between same-sex couples and man-and-woman couples and for situations in which, because of these fundamental differences, it may be necessary, not just desirable, to introduce legislation that applies to marriages of man-and-woman couples but not to marriages of same-sex couples, or, conversely, to marriages of same-sex couples but not to marriages of man-and-woman couples.
When or even whether such a situation is likely to arise, I cannot predict. However, our debates on the Bill have already shown that the development of the law on marriage in the new circumstances will be, for some time at any rate, a complicated and delicate business. It is more likely than not that such a situation will arise within the next few transitional years after the Bill is passed as the new institution settles down. If that is so, we should be foreseeing it and providing for it now.
The definitions of the two forms of marriage suggested in the amendment are dry and factual. It would be possible to find, in the great heap of riches of the English language, apt words of greater evocative moment, although perhaps not of greater pith. I rather think that “traditional” should not be one of them. The word has too limited a shelf life for use in legislation.
Innovations tend to become quickly encrusted with tradition. That is part of the process of establishing them, and the youngest traditions are often the strongest. We know what traditional marriage means today, but I hazard a prediction that within a generation of the passage of the Bill—perhaps even within 10 years—gay and lesbian marriage will become as traditional as heterosexual marriage. However that may be, the definitions in the amendment have been adopted because they are already in the Bill. That is what I call the line of least resistance.
My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern particularly hopes that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, will be gratified to note that the amendment is 100% bracket-free.
These definitions are permissive not mandatory. The amendment makes it clear that they may be used in legislation, not that they shall be used. If in future anyone wants to use different definitions in new legislation, they will be free to do so.
We offer this amendment to improve the Bill, not to weaken, dilute or frustrate its purposes. It is completely even-handed, neither expressing nor implying any value judgment between the two forms of marriage within the single institution of marriage. It cannot be interpreted as implying that one form of marriage is superior or inferior to the other. I commend the amendment to your Lordships as a strictly limited, practical, realistic, sensible and undogmatic proposal for dealing with problems that are likely to arise in relation to the application of legislation to the institution of marriage as it will be once the Bill has been enacted. I beg to move.