Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) — equivalent to the U.S. State Department — is providing same sex marriage services at its consulates around the world ostensibly as a way of pressuring other nations to recognise the unions in law.
The FCO has been boasting of performing these ceremonies since the introduction of The Consular Marriages and Marriages under Foreign Law Order 2014, often taking to social media during LGBT+ Pride days, weeks, or months in order to promote their work.
British embassies are providing same-sex marriage services in 26 countries.#PrideInLondon #LoveHappensHere pic.twitter.com/FrtDPWKtWt
— Foreign Office (@foreignoffice) July 8, 2017
But while the list of countries now numbers 26, up from 23 in 2014, it appears the FCO is not being completely truthful about the services it is providing. Nor are they particularly challenging the nations where LGBT+ people are most severely targeted.
In other words, the FCO appears to be using same sex marriage and their embassies that provide it as a virtue-signalling, or marketing, tool.
The rules contained within the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 dictate that in order to receive British consulate marriage services for LGBT couples, the following must apply:
(a) at least one of the people proposing to marry is a United Kingdom national,
(b) the people proposing to marry would have been eligible to marry each other in such part of the United Kingdom as is determined in accordance with the Order,
(c) the authorities of the country or territory in which it is proposed that they marry will not object to the marriage, and
(d) insufficient facilities exist for them to enter into a marriage under the law of that country or territory.
In other words, the embassies are providing UK marriages to couples that are at least 50 per cent UK nationals with the caveat that the host nation of the consulate in question “will not object”. This is far from how their public relations efforts make it seem, where they simply claim to provide same-sex marriage services in 26 countries.
Furthermore, while the FCO provides same sex marriage services to UK nationals in two Muslim majority nations — Kosovo and Albania — they do not do so in places where Islamic rules (Shariah) constitute or form the backbone of law and society, opening them up to allegations of hypocrisy and opportunism.
Benjamin Harris-Quinney, chairman of the Bow Group, Britain’s oldest conservative think-tank, told Breitbart London: “Over the past 5 years the Conservative leadership, against the party membership and Parliamentary Party’s wishes, have pursued a bizarre and shrill campaign to win the favour of LGBT lobby groups who have spent vast sums of money lobbying in Westminster. All it has achieved is the decimation of the membership base of the Conservative Party.
“What the FCO has set out is an attempt to continue this window dressing, without actually doing anything to improve people’s lives. What they miss is that most ordinary people who are gay have no interest in whether they can get married in the UK Embassy in Chad, and are far more concerned about the imprisonment and execution of gay people in nations where we do business.
“I think most conservatives are of the view that people’s private lives should remain private, and it is not the role of the FCO, or any facet of government, to virtue signal off the back of any citizens’ sexual preference at home or abroad. It is a fundamentally un-conservative and un-British thing to do.”
Another noteworthy point is that while Russia is often charged with gross LGBT “intolerance” or persecution, it seems the FCO can conduct same sex marriages in the country without objection from the Russian authorities.
Former FCO Minister Chris Bryant said of the matter: “I hope that when [Russians] start seeing gay and lesbian couples getting married in the British consulate in Moscow they will celebrate rather than denigrate and persecute” and the LGBT+ website Queerty concluded their article promoting the FCO’s position with the line: “Take that, Putin”, clearly unaware the host nation would have to tacitly approve of the process.
In 2014, the list of nations included Australia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Japan, Kosovo, Latvia, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, and Vietnam.
Since then, Colombia — which now recognises same sex marriages — has dropped off the list. But so too have San Marino and Azerbaijan. The FCO has not yet responded to a request for comment on the matter.
Other countries now on the list are: Albania, Germany, Lithuania, Malta, Mozambique, and Panama.
The FCO has not yet responded to the question of why they do not attempt to provide these services in countries such as Saudi Arabia — where over 31,000 Britons reside — or Iran, Qatar, the UAE, or elsewhere.
The FCO did however state:
It is a matter for individual countries to decide whether nor not they recognise consular or other UK same-sex marriage. From a UK perspective, all consular marriages are valid as if they had taken place in the relevant part of the UK.
Consular marriages are performed by members of our staff with consular responsibilities as part of their daily duties.
The United Kingdom introduced Same Sex Marriage in 2013 under “Conservative” Prime Minister David Cameron who has called the legislation one of his proudest achievements.
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