Reactions to the judgment

Where does it Stop?

A poem in response to some of the outraged statements
of those offended by the thought of gay marriage

Where does it stop? Soon there will be people
wanting to marry their horse or perhaps
three or four people all want to get married,
to the same okapi.
Whales will go down the aisle with bankers,
tree climbing kangaroos will want to be sea-lions,

	I was truly shocked by the judge's decision about your marriage. To all of us our marriages and relationships are just as meaningful as anybody else's and we should not have to fight a legal system to have that recognised. Our rights have come a long way but it's clear that they haven't come far enough through an incredibly patriarchal legal system.
	Sarah Fish, Gloustershire

	The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) believes that the judge's decision to justify the admitted discrimination between same-sex civil partnership and civil marriage, on the grounds of inability to procreate, runs contrary to the rest of his findings. He himself records the breach of this outworn criterion through the European Court's rulings in favour of marriage for the transgendered. LGCM notes that the judgment only applies to same-sex couples without children. We believe and hope that sooner or later a same-sex couple with children - their own, fostered or adopted - will be able to surmount the very conservative barrier set up by his judgement.
	Richard Kirker, Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement

	This definition of marriage given by the court will seem almost primitive in years to come when the failure of this judge to recognise the rights of gay and lesbian people as human rights is reversed. Other states across the world have loosened the bonds of conservatism, religion and tradition to give gay and lesbian people the recognition they are entitled too - it is a shame the UK, where most marriages contracted today are in any case secular, has not yet followed their example. Government jibs at gay marriage only because of church objections, which in talking about "protecting the family" are really talking code about protecting religious dogma.
	Andrew Copson, British Humanist Association

	I am outraged on your behalf! I too got married in Canada in 2003 and of course fully expect my (heterosexual) marriage to be recognised here. I've had no trouble at all. Your marriage is the same as mine, so what's the problem?
	Sarah Smith, Sheffield, England

	As a lesbian, I felt angry upon learning of Mark Potter’s judgment denying legal recognition to Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson’s. The justification for the decision was that since things have been like this for a long time, they must always be so. Were that extrapolated to all areas of life, we’d all still be living in caves. Perhaps Potter still is.
	Anna Langley, Cambridge, England

	I suppose I am not surprised at the verdict - but quite stunned at the same time. It was a wonderful thing you and Sue did - taking up a hard won right by marrying in Canada, and then again by suing for equal recognition in Britain. If you decide to go to the European Court over this (if it is possible to take the case there), you will have the continued support of a considerable community. I wish you the best, whatever you decide to do. And I appreciate the power and courage of your decision to challenge this inequity publicly the way you have.
	Deborah Lynn Steinberg, Warwick, England

	The court cited as a major obstacle the traditional definition of marriage being between a man and a woman with the primary aim of procreation. This part of the judgment reads like a lift from a Christian marriage service - and we deserve better from the law, under which everyone is supposed to be equal. So can we now look forward to marriages conducted abroad not being recognised if either of parties were beyond child-bearing age when married or they were otherwise unable - or even unwilling - to bear children? Of course not. The inescapable conclusion is that the law is perpetuating the religiously-based prejudice which has been the cause of so much suffering to homosexuals for centuries if not millennia. The time is long overdue for the institutional prejudice so obvious in this judgment to be eradicated from our legal system.
	Keith Porteous Wood, National Secular Society, England

	As a heterosexual married woman I am outraged by the hetero-patriarchal terms on which judgement was made against Celia and Sue. Condoning discrimination against same-sex couples in order to maintain some false out-dated vision of marriage is totally unacceptable. To deny people access to marriage on the grounds of sex and/or sexuality is as absurd as it is unjust. I hope Celia and Sue find the energy and resources to continue their fight against this injustice.
	Clare Stockill, Carlisle, England

	In his decision, Justice Potter shows a fixation on the plumbing of sexuality (at about the same level of sexual sophistication as J.K.Rowling's literary character Harry of the same last name). Potter states that same-sex legal relationships can't be called 'marriage', "not because they are considered inferior to the institution of marriage, but because, as a matter of objective fact and common understanding, ... they are indeed different." His decision is particularly insulting because he suggests marriage is mainly about making babies and raising children. This line of reasoning flies in the face of two inescapable realities: not all heterosexual couples want to, or can produce children; and some same-sex couples do have children and raise families.
	Gilles Marchildon, Executive Director, Egale, Canada

	I'm outraged by the High Court's decision about recognizing your Canadian marriage. It is particularly distressing that the judgment stated that lesbian and gay couples are not families. According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, family is "a group of people who are generally not blood relatives but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals and frequently live together." Lesbian and gay couples who have opted to marry certainly meet those criteria and more. I hope you will appeal the High Court's decision. In admiration for your willingness to fight this battle,
	Nanette Gartrell, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Center of Excellence in Women's Health, University of California at San Francisco, USA'

	Given that Catholic Spain can recognise marriage for lesbians & gay men, this is a very reactionary judgement & one which I hope you get the resources together to challenge. Speaking personally, I still have personal misgivings at the idea of marriage (I am still an unrepentent lesbian feminist) but believe it should be available as a right to everyone who wants it, just as a civil partnership should be available to heterosexual couples too if they want. I would really like to see a system in place in which everyone could make legal provision (inheritance rights, pension rights etc.) for whoever they wanted - partner, friend, sister, great aunt, next door neighbour... - which would lift the focus from 'couples' and particularly the implications of sexual relationships, which still seem to be implicitly assumed. I have some misgivings about civil partnership (the prioritising of a couple relationship particularly) but welcome the legislation which finally gives legitimacy to same-sex relationships, or at least I thought it did until your judgment which has firmly put us in our place, as being in effect of lesser value since it doesn't lead to a proper family.
	Avril Rolph, Swansea, Wales