UK GAY UNIONS DOWN

The number of same sex civil unions being performed in the UK has dropped considerably since the introduction of the legislation in December 2005. According to the Office for National Statistics the number of civil partnerships fell by nearly a fifth last year.

“After civil partnerships were legislated there was a huge surge of couples who had been together for decades who suddenly wished to take advantage of the legal recognition,” gay rights activist Peter Tatchell told the Guardian newspaper.

“Now we’ve settled into a pattern of civil partnership take-up which reflects people who have recently fallen in love for the first time.”

Figures showed that 7169 civil partnerships were formed last year, down from 8,728 in 2007.

Tatchell has argued that civil partnerships are discriminatory and has described them as “a form of sexual apartheid”. He insists that same-sex marriages, equal in name and in all other aspects to that of heterosexual marriages, be legalised in the UK.