Humanist weddings will have legal status from next year following the passage of legislation by the Oireachtas.
The
Seanad last week passed the Civil Registration (Amendment) Bill
allowing members of the Humanist Association of Ireland to perform legal
civil wedding ceremonies.
The Bill amends the Civil Registration
Act 2004, which regulates the registration of civil marriages and
stipulates that apart from Health Service Executive registrars, only a
member of a “religious body” may celebrate legal marriages.
The change
extends “the type of organisation that can nominate marriage solemnisers
to include secular bodies”, said Minister for Social Protection Joan
Burton, who introduced the Bill.
The framing of the legislation to
meet the wishes of the humanist community “was a political act of
idealism and vision”, she said.
“The slow boring of hard boards in the
Office of the Attorney General brings that vision of change to
fruition.”
Secular body
A secular body is
defined in the legislation as being “in existence for at least five
years, be an organised group of people who have secular, ethical and
humanist beliefs in common, have a minimum of 50 people and meet on a
regular basis. It must be a charity and cannot have the making of profit
as one of its main purposes.”
Ms Burton said the Bill “aims to extend
the scope of marriage solemnisers across the spectrum of belief systems
and formally acknowledge this in the registration system”.
Of the
19,828 marriages held in 2011, almost 6,000 were civil ceremonies, 29
per cent of all marriages, compared to 6 per cent in 1996.
It was
first read in the Seanad as a Private Member’s Bill in November 2011
when introduced by Senator Ivana Bacik (Labour).
It was subsequently
changed and resubmitted and is now expected to be passed by the Dáil
this month.
Independent Senator David Norris, who supported the Bill,
criticised the failure to allow gay marriage.
He asked if the
Government could “understand what it feels like for me to know that
whereas a serial murderer, a rapist or somebody convicted of incest can
be legally married in this country, I cannot?”