In a
press release last week, Britain's Government Equalities Office announced the release of its report titled
Implementing Opposite-Sex Civil Partnerships: Next Steps. It announces detailed plans for extending civil partnerships to opposite sex couples, and to ask for views of the public on whether conversion of marriages to civil partnerships should be permitted. The report says in part:
Broadly, we intend to provide protections to ensure that faith or religious organisations are not compelled to act in a way that would be in contravention of their beliefs.
...We are aware that for many religious groups, the preferred union for opposite-sex couples is marriage and those groups would not wish to host civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples on their premises, or in any way participate in the formation of opposite-sex civil partnerships. They may also have religious objections to employing individuals, including ministers, who are in a civil partnership as opposed to a marriage.
Law & Religion UK has an extensive discussion of the report.
