Two couples are taking the government to court over its failure to legalise humanist marriage in England and Wales five years after a ruling that the lack of recognition was discriminatory.
Engaged couples Terri O’Sullivan and Edd Berrill, from Coventry, and Nicole Shasha and Rory Booth, from Leicester, are preparing to go to court in their fight to be married in line with their humanist beliefs.
“It’s insulting that we’ve got to try to prove our beliefs are valid to have them recognised,” O’Sullivan, 45, said. “It makes me feel a bit emotional because it’s so important to us.”
O’Sullivan was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness before leaving the religion at 21 after years of abuse and becoming homeless.
“To be able to stand in front of our friends and family and talk in a way that’s important to us, it means everything … Being an ex-religious person who’s experienced religious abuse, it’s important I can now be something positive – I’m not just an atheist, I’m a humanist.”
Shasha, 32, said: “We’re the examples, but there’s going to be thousands of individuals like us.”
Booth, 32, said it was important they took a stand. “It’s about making sure that people are treated fairly no matter who they are. It’s not really just a humanist issue, it’s an issue of fair treatment for everyone.”
Humanism, a non-religious worldview that emphasises human agency, is not recognised under marriage laws, meaning couples having a humanist celebrant must also have a civil registration service.
In 2020, the high court ruled the lack of legal recognition for humanist marriage in England and Wales “gave rise to discrimination”, with Mrs Justice Eady saying the then justice secretary, Robert Buckland, “cannot simply sit on his hands”.
Humanist marriages are legal in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and elsewhere in the world including New Zealand, Canada and Australia. In Scotland in 2022 there were 9,140 humanist wedding ceremonies compared with 8,072 based on faiths or other beliefs.
“It just feels like it has been fobbed off,” O’Sullivan said. “It makes no sense that it’s perfectly fine in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it’s just not here. There’s nothing really outlandish or bizarre about our views, they’re pretty common.”
Berrill, 42, said he “started secondary school as a Catholic and left it as an atheist”, before discovering humanism 15 years ago.
“It’s important for someone to represent the views and the rights of the non-religious, to stand up for us and make sure we’ve got the same representation and are afforded the same opportunities,” he said.
Shasha, who is a humanist funeral and wedding celebrant, co-runs a humanist group in Leicester with Booth, her partner of 11 years.
“I think sometimes people can assume that [humanism] is a vague ephemeral thing,” Booth said.
“We run a community group much like many religious people do …. So being able to have the humanist philosophy as part of our wedding would be a really lovely thing for us. It’s an equalities issue.”
The government is expected to announce plans this year for an overhaul of marriage laws, which could allow weddings to take place at a variety of venues, based on recommendations from the Law Commission.
Humanists are concerned a major shake-up would take years to implement, and are calling on the government to move quicker to legalise humanist ceremonies.
Andrew Copson, the chief executive of Humanists UK, which is supporting the action, said: “Since 2013, every leader of the Labour party has said they supported legal humanist marriage and every Labour frontbench spokesperson has urged the government to act without delay.
“But today the same bad arguments that Labour comprehensively debunked from the opposition benches are made by Labour ministers without a blush. I can completely understand the frustration of these couples.”
He said expensive legal action was “nobody’s first resort” and that “humanist marriage could be made legal within weeks at no cost and with no detriment to anyone, if the government chose to do so”.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “It is right the government takes the time to consider this important issue, including the Law Commission’s 2022 report, and will set out its position in due course.”
