“Stop discriminating against straight people”: it’s an unlikely rallying cry for the movement for equality. Yet Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan should be regarded as civil rights activists like any other. Their cause? That, as a straight couple, they are forbidden from having a civil partnership, a right same-sex couples can freely exercise. As they take the government’s equalities office to the high court – backed by a 34,000-strong petition – they should be applauded by all defenders of equality.

Couple to begin court fight against ban on heterosexual civil partnerships Read more

Some of you are probably wondering: what exactly is the point? Firstly, LGBT activists have been striving for equality for decades. Part of this quest is for the law to treat them the same as heterosexuals. And yet as things stand, the law still treats same-sex and different-sex couples differently. Equality dictates they should be treated the same.

Secondly: there are LGBT activists who reject the institution of marriage, believing that traditional heterosexual norms should be challenged. Indeed, pro-marriage LGBT activists have been assailed for being conservative and capitulating to problematic traditions. But the point was that supporters and opponents of marriage alike should have the right to freely choose whether they get married, rather than the state deciding for them with a blanket, bigoted ban.

The same principle applies here. Steinfeld and Keidan regard marriage as a patriarchal institution. Marriage may be synonymous with romance for millions of people, but there is also a long history of coercion, of women being treated as the man’s slave, of rape (marital rape was only banned in Britain in 1991): it continues to this day for all too many women.

Of course, many couples have reinvented marriage as a partnership of equals, but for others, the baggage is too much. And it should be the right of such couples to find an alternative: a civil partnership. It means, as Keidan and Steinfeld put it, they can gain “greater legal rights and responsibilities” in a manner consistent with their values. It is a right already available to straight couples in, say, France: my brother and his partner have themselves exercised it.

Civil partnerships should be for everyone, no exceptions | Charles Keidan and Rebecca Steinfeld Read more

Marriage has been in decline for a very long time. In 2014, 33% of people were not married, a three-percentage point jump from a decade earlier, and one in eight were co-habiting. While nine in 10 of 60-year-olds were married at that time or had been previously, researchers estimated that only half of young couples would walk down the aisle.

In what is perhaps evidence of my conservative side, while it appeals to someone like me, it is increasingly not to everyone’s taste. For those who want to publicly celebrate their love among those close to them – and gain the rights associated with marriage – let’s give another option.

Same-sex couples are currently spoilt for choice; heterosexual couples should have the same right. That is, after all, what is equality is all about.