Gay marriage fury at Queen Mum’s former castle
March 25th, 2009
A Scottish castle is at the centre of an equality row after announcing that it will become a venue for heterosexual weddings but not civil partnerships.
The trustees of the Castle of Mey, which is the former home of the Queen Mother, have decided to allow the castle to become a wedding venue for Christian weddings conducted by a priest or a vicar. Since Mey itself does not have a wedding licence, the trustees claim the castle cannot hold civil marriage ceremonies or gay civil partnerships.
However, the General Register Office of Scotland has pointed out that while wedding venues needed a licence to conduct civil marriages, civil partnerships can be conducted without a licence. The venue would just need to seek the approval of the local authority before conducting civil partnerships.
Stonewall claimed the decision by the trustees appeared to be a breach of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007.
David Allison from gay rights group Outrage! says that the Queen Mum would be “spinning in her grave” at the decision. “The Queen Mother surrounded herself with gay people,” said Allison.
“Doing this at the Queen Mother’s old residence is particularly odd. She had no problem with gay people, quite the opposite.”
Responding to Outrage! and Stonewall, James Murray of the Castle Mey charitable trust has since claimed that the trust “just hadn’t thought about” the civil partnership issue.
“We’ve only just launched this initiative and we have not so far had any requests to host a civil partnership ceremony,” said Murray.
“It’s something we hadn’t discussed before, but we have now and decided that, if we get an inquiry, we’ll deal with it.
“I hope people appreciate that there was no intention to in any way upset or alienate people entering into civil partnerships – it was just something we hadn’t thought about.”
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