A heterosexual couple have won the right to have a partnership rather than have to get married.
Rebecca Steinfeld, 37, and Charles Keidan, 41, went to court in their bid to have a legal union that is not a marriage, after they were prevented by laws which state only same-sex couples are eligible.
The academics, who live in Hammersmith, west London, suffered defeat at the Court of Appeal in February last year, but were given the go-ahead in August for a Supreme Court hearing.
A panel of five Supreme Court justices, including the court’s president Lady Hale, backed the couple’s case today.
The couple, who have two daughters aged two and nine months, had argued that the Government’s position is ‘incompatible with equality law’.
During the hearing, their barrister Karon Monaghan QC told the court they have ‘deep-rooted and genuine ideological objections to marriage’ and were ‘not alone’ in their views.
She said matrimony was ‘historically heteronormative and patriarchal’ and the couple’s objections were ‘not frivolous’.
Ms Monaghan added: ‘These are important issues, no small matters, and they are serious for my clients because they cannot marry conformable with their conscience and that should weigh very heavily indeed.’
The Court of Appeal agreed the couple had established a potential violation of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relates to discrimination, taken with Article 8, which refers to respect for private and family life.
But, by a majority of two to one, the judges said the interference was justified by the Government’s policy of ‘wait and evaluate’.