Spousal veto - labour proposal , is it really a problem now?

Funnily enough, none of the lesbians I know consider me homophobic for not wanting to stay in my marriage.

That’s so clear. Thanks.

You think it’s homophobic to not want to be married to someone of the same ‘sex’? What a ridiculous thing to say.
If you are heterosexual, why would you want to marry someone of the same sex? That doesn’t mean you hate all people of that sex. Also, you’re completely missing the point. We all have the right to follow whichever religion we choose and to live our lives according to that religion. There is a massive conflict of rights between different religious beliefs and gender identity ideology. No one should be forced to accept anyone else’s beliefs. A woman should not be forced to have her legal documentation to state that she was married to another woman and is now divorced when in fact she was married to a man.
The ultimate kick in the face is that a man who wants to be seen as a woman will do whatever he can to make everyone around him legally see him as a woman. Sh by divorcing his wife, he can wave around a divorce certificate that indicates he is a woman married to another woman - ie a lesbian, thus yet again affirming his womanhood. It’s all about being in control, which is what these men like!

So it seems, this clause is not needed to protect Catholic or Muslim women who need an annulment for religious reasons because these religions do the annulments themselves.

This is to conflate and misunderstand marriage law and religious marriage. Muslim women without a legal marriage are not capable of being protected legally in cases of divorce, if they've had a religious ceremony only.

The legal part is important if you have to go to court. Going to a religious court isn't recognised by the state.

This also misses the point that the "spousal veto" affects everyone who is legally married. It could happen to you, it could not. But this - if enacted - would open up every part of marriage as a contract for change. That would be to the detriment of women and children.

It's a Trojan horse. Make no mistake about it.

I think the Righteous contributor to this thread has been very educational

I think if posters like Coriolise misunderstand discussion around the GRA so much that they are using words like ‘homophobia’, then repeal of the GRA is imperative. Bad and confusing law is divisive.

It’s the same for other religions with similar requirements, the respective religious authority issues the annulment and they don’t give two shiny shits what U.K. Government document is issued because that’s civil law.

That’s not the full picture really because you can’t get an annulment if you’re still civilly married, and you can’t get married if your marriage is not also civilly valid.

Coriolise
So any spouse would have that 26 weeks times 4 to get a no fault divorce done if their homophobia meant they couldn’t stand to have been in a same sex marriage on paper

Excuse me. There are many reasons for not wanting to remain in such a marriage and homophobia is probably not one of them.
Or is everyone who chooses an opposite sex partner homophobic? You ccould work for Stonewall if that's your take.

Not really

It is:
Current arrangement: Your spouse begins living socially as a person of the opposite sex. Two years later, your spouse gives notice that they intend to legally change their sex making your marriage same sex by applying for a GRC. There is an extra mechanism to give you an extra 6 months to do a civil version of voiding the marriage before it changes to something you never agreed to.

Proposed arrangement: Your spouse begins living socially as a person of the opposite sex. You can choose to divorce via civil law and annul (if applicable) via your religions process immediately and be done in six months. Two years later, your spouse unilaterally legally changes their sex and the most basic terms of your marriage. If you don't like it you’ve had two years to divorce him four times over (and annul via your religions procedures if applicable) by now and you can still civil divorce and religious annul (if applicable) at your leisure within six months from start to finish.

It allows an annulment. This is needed by some women who cannot divorce for religious reasons.

Moving onto Muslim women. An annulment in Islam is faskh and can only be issued by a qaadi or ruling in a sharia court. As with the Catholics, these religious courts don’t care what civil proceedings say as marriage is a religious matter. We do have sharia courts in the U.K. (as we have Catholic tribunals) and they issue any annulments that are needed.

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/133859/the-difference-between-khul-talaaq-and-faskh-ways-of-ending-a-marriage

https://fullfact.org/law/uks-sharia-courts/

So it seems, this clause is not needed to protect Catholic or Muslim women who need an annulment for religious reasons because these religions do the annulments themselves.

Coriolise · Today 00:37

WorkingItOutAsIGo · Yesterday 13:50

Because within that 26 weeks one partner can legally change sex and force the other partner to be in a homosexual marriage!

The .gov webpage says you have to live as opposite gender for 2yrs before you are even eligible to apply for a GRC to legally change your sex.

So any spouse would have that 26 weeks times 4 to get a no fault divorce done if their homophobia meant they couldn’t stand to have been in a same sex marriage on paper

Don’t you dare accuse someone of homophobia who is upset at finding themselves in this position. How dare you. How insensitive can you be? This is an abusive comment.

How do you think that two years is spent with the new identity gradually unfolding and creeping in, often secretly at first. Then often children are involved too; and maybe hope from false promises.

And this new version of a spouse isn’t even a homosexual.

The U.K. Gov annulment process is really only for CoE, which doesn’t actually require annulment for anyone to remarry/not be ostracised.

If you are Catholic, the Gov.uk annulment process does not apply, you actually apply for annulment from the Catholic Church via a tribunal.
https://www.rcdea.org.uk/marriage-tribunal/guide-to-marriage-nullity/

It’s the same for other religions with similar requirements, the respective religious authority issues the annulment and they don’t give two shiny shits what U.K. Government document is issued because that’s civil law.

That’s why in Scotland and N. Ireland, our most Catholic regions, the spousal veto with path to a UK Government annulment does not exist in the GRA. It goes straight to divorce because annulment comes from the religious authority, not from the CofE state.

Ereshkigalangcleg · Yesterday 13:47
I can't copy and paste text for some reason but read section 2 of Trans Widows' Voices written submission to the Women and Equalities Select Committee

committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/16197/pdf/#:~:text=4.4%20The%20Spousal%20Exit%20Clause,resisted%20and%20treated%20with%20suspicion.

It allows an annulment. This is needed by some women who cannot divorce for religious reasons.

Thank you for posting that.

The provision provides the option of annulment for women who are not able to divorce for religious or cultural reasons. It is essential that this is retained, to avoid these women being trapped in potentially abusive marriages or being ostracised by their communities or prevented from remarrying, if they divorce.

Annulment is not the same as divorce. In the Catholic Church if you divorce you may not remarry and if you do remarry it cannot be a church/religious wedding.

An annulment on the other hand makes it as though the marriage never happened.

I am not sure in which other religions this would also officially matter, but it would certainly make a lot of difference to anyone who believes in marriage as an unbreakable, religious rite.

Annulment is right. The woman promised to take ‘this man’ as her husband. If he was not/is not a man then there was no promise.

The .gov webpage says you have to live as opposite gender for 2yrs before you are even eligible to apply for a GRC to legally change your sex.

So any spouse would have that 26 weeks times 4 to get a no fault divorce done if their homophobia meant they couldn’t stand to have been in a same sex marriage on paper.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-gender-recognition-certificate/who-can-apply

Technically, the NHS wait lists mean that a transitioner is prevented from transitioning for far longer than 26 weeks (6 months).

It is currently almost a 5 year wait from referral to first appointment

We are currently offering first appointment to people who were referred in: July 2018 - https://gic.nhs.uk/appointments/waiting-times/ as of Feb 2023 latest update.

Exactly. For as long as this law remains, the marriage exit clause (annulment) needs to remain, for the spouse's sake. But still better if we could get the nonsensical, reality-denying GRA repealed altogether.

It's to do with the order in which things happen.

Current arrangement: your spouse gives notice that they intend to change the most basic terms of your marriage. Here is a mechanism to leave your marriage before it changes to something you never agreed to.

Proposed arrangement: your spouse has unilaterally changed the most basic terms of your marriage. If you don't like it you can divorce him but not before he has changed the most basic terms of your marriage.

The current arrangement respects women. The proposed arrangement does not.

I think we need a third process. Annulment is a very specific instrument, it enacts that a marriage did not exist, either because it was invalid (consanguinity, bigamy or underage), or because it was conducted in bad faith (pregnancy, force, Existing STD, non consummated ). Spousal transition has been rather shoehorned in, because it is all very new and so the law did not have a place for it.

In this case it is treated as a voidable, rather than a void marriage. So it is not as if it never existed. Hence children remain legitimate and financial remedies are the same as for divorce.

...section 20 does essentially say only males can commit rape. So there are other parts of the GRA which accept realisation of risk. But totally get your point:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/20

Hansard shows that a lot of things were speculated about as risks… but they all thought everyone would be nice, play fair, be good chaps and it would all work out the only risk they cared enough to prevent happening by law was the one risk which only affected males, the primogeniture rule.

Fixed it for you.

This links in with so many other things, where someone who is trans is expected to be exempted from normal laws, regulations and standards. It's a very dangerous precedent to permit any group, it leads to a society in which some have a higher privileged standard of rights and entitlements not granted to others, and about five minutes study of history will show this never ends in sunshine and rainbows. It is a really stupid idea.

That makes sense Hermione. I said 'I take you to be my husband', I never said anything about wife. That's the contract that was entered into.

It is a problem because a marriage is a legal contract and the precedent for allowing one party to unilaterally vary the terms of a contract without the other party’s consent, is very serious.

why is this type of contract less important than any other?

OP, I started to try to answer your query about religions and it's just impossible. There are many denominations within Christianity, that exist within the UK. There are many branches of Islam and Judaism that exist within the UK. Each branch has its own religious beliefs and teachings around relationships and marriage. All adherents are protected under the Equality Act 2010 and under the Human Rights Act.

This thread has convinced me that the GRA is bad law in terms of protecting women, children and their rights to private and family life, property, dignity and humanity. That the GRA was a cop-out designed to avoid same-sex civil unions (that would have permitted legal inheritance etc). Shameful, but fixable via repeal of the GRA, now full equal rights are here in law.

And I do hope that the Archbishop of Canterbury will not try to enforce Welby's Trendy Hegemony over ALL women and children in the UK on 'an ecumenical matter'.

Depressingly, Hansard shows that a lot of things were speculated about as risks (all of which have come to pass, plus much worse stuff they didn't manage to dream of) but they all thought everyone would be nice, play fair, be good chaps and it would all work out.

The purpose of law is to protect the law abiding from the law breakers. If they had conscience, care for others and respect for boundaries, they wouldn't need the law in their way.