The legal ban on heterosexual couples entering into civil partnerships is to be challenged in the high court.

Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who describe themselves as feminists and reject marriage as a “patriarchal” institution, will pursue their claim against the government’s equalities office on Tuesday.



The case is being brought on the grounds that the refusal to allow them to participate in a civil partnership amounts to discrimination, breaching their right to family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights.



The hearing is due to last two days at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. An online petition in favour of expanding civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples has so far attracted more than 33,000 signatures.



Keidan and Steinfeld said: “We’ve just had a baby and we want to cement and celebrate our relationship by forming a civil partnership but we can’t. We were both involved in the fight for same-sex marriage within our community, and it is fantastic social progress that couples can now marry, regardless of sexual orientation. We, however, want to raise our child as equal partners and believe that a civil partnership – a modern, symmetrical institution – best reflects our beliefs, and sets the best example for her.”

The former children’s minister, Tim Loughton, has put down a 10 minute rule bill – due to receive its second reading on 29 January – in support of the campaign. It has received cross-party backing from other MPs including Caroline Lucas, Andy Slaughter and Stephen Twigg.



Loughton said: “Opposite-sex couples who do not want to go down the formal marriage route are completely unrecognised in the eyes of the state. With 3 million cohabiting opposite-sex couples in the UK, and 40% of them having children, this is a large body of people and they have few protections if things go wrong, let alone tax advantages rightly now available to same-sex couples who can choose between marriage and civil partnership.



“Many cohabiting couples are living under the complete misconception that they are protected by common law marriage, which does not formally exist. At a time when we want to do everything to encourage family stability, particularly to help foster strong childhoods, it is absurd that the state has no way of recognising and celebrating these relationships. It is high time we recognised equal civil partnerships to give greater security to millions of our citizens.”



The human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “Equal civil partnerships are a simple matter of equality. In a democratic society, everyone should be equal before the law. Some opposite-sex couples don’t like the sexist history and connotations of marriage. They’d prefer a civil partnership. To deny them that option is discrimination.”



Ava Lee, manager of the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign, said: “The current inequality in civil partnerships is not sustainable. The institution already exists, and we know that civil partnership remains the first choice of a sizeable minority of same-sex couples (17% of same-sex couples have chosen civil partnership over marriage since its introduction in March 2014).



“Like these same-sex couples, there are many opposite-sex couples that do not wish to marry and feel civil partnerships better reflect their relationships and values.”

The 2004 Civil Partnership Act stipulates that only same-sex couples are eligible. A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The decision not to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples is currently subject to judicial review and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”



An official review of the legislation two years ago concluded that most people were happy with the operation of the act. It commented: “Of those 10,634 respondents who answered [a question] about opening up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples, more than three quarters were against the proposal.”



Those opposing changes to the act commented variously that it would undermine the stability of marriage, that there was no need for an alternative to marriage and that “only very few opposite-sex couples would want a civil partnership”.

