Rejected petition Allow the return of small legal marriages.
The Welsh government has a responsibility to uphold basic rights of legal marriage for everyone. Marriage provides legal rights for inheritance, children, next of kin, medical decisions, and housing. Moreover, at the beginning of lockdown the advice for couples was to move in together or separate - which has added strain on people of faith (and/or similar values) who require marriage before that is possible. This needs to be reinstated as soon as possible.
More details
Marriage is the only article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is not supplemented in some way, or given a high priority in the easing of lockdown.
It should be for the minimum number of people (5 for the Church in Wales, or 6 for any outside of this) or up to 10 like funerals. Additionally, it could be carried out in a similar manner to funerals, and would be safer than a supermarket due to the planning that goes along with weddings.
In addition to the legal rights that come with marriage, many religions and value systems require marriage before they can live together as a couple. Despite marriage and faiths being a protected characteristic of the Equality Act (2011), they have been more impacted by the lockdown and disregarded throughout decision making.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue, or if the Petitions Committee has considered one in the last year.
Another petition about small weddings is already collecting signatures: https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/200037
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards
Rejected petitions are published in the language in which they were submitted