LONDON – British Quakers agreed yesterday to celebrate gay marriages and called on the government to recognise same-sex unions as legally valid.
At the religious group’s yearly meeting in York in northern England, the Quakers in Britain said they would ask the government to change the law to allow them to register same-sex marriages in the same way as heterosexual ones.
Gay rights campaigners said it was a “trail-blazing decision” after the issue of homosexual unions had opened deep divisions in other faiths.
Since 2005, same-sex couples have been able to enter into civil partnerships in Britain which, while giving gay relationships legal status, are not considered a marriage.
The Quakers agreed “to treat same-sex committed relationships in the same way as opposite sex marriages, reaffirming our central insight that marriage is the Lord’s work and we are but witnesses”. – (Reuters)