Humanist celebrants, like myself, are asking couples who have had a humanist wedding ceremony to write to their MPs to support the amendment tabled by Stephen Williams MP that humanist celebrants should be allowed to perform legal same-sex marriages as part of the same-sex marriage bill, and that humanist marriages for opposite-sex couples should also be made legal.  

Currently, their ceremony carries no legal weight and needs to be supplemented by a civil marriage proceeding.  This demand for parity is only fair, since humanist celebrants have been conducting same-sex weddings for decades, so why should our religious counterparts now get the power to do it legally but not us?  In Scotland, as part of its implementation of same-sex marriages, the Government is legalising same-sex humanist marriages, so why not in England and Wales? 

Since humanist marriages were legalised in Scotland they have rocketed in number and last year overtook Catholic marriages in figures.  

Jeanne Rathbone

Battersea