The Equal Love campaign is today formally closing its 2011 application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which sought to secure full equality in UK civil marriage and civil partnership law.
This follows the decision of the European Court that the application was “inadmissible” and subsequent fruitless attempts by campaigners to challenge this ruling.
“This is the end of the road for our application. We can take it no further. Our sincere thanks to the eight couples involved and to all our supporters who stood with us for four years. The Equal Love campaign will now concentrate on opposing the ban on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland and supporting a new legal challenge to the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships, which is being pursued by a London heterosexual couple, Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan,” said Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation. He coordinated the Equal Love campaign and the 2011 ECtHR application.
The Equal Love case was filed with the European Court of Human Rights on 2 February 2011 by four lesbian and gay couples and four heterosexual couples, who respectively sought to overturn the then twin bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships in Britain.