(Family Division; Sir Mark Potter P; 31 July 2006)

The lesbian couple had married in Canada and sought to have their marriage recognised as a marriage in England, arguing that recognising the marriage as a mere civil partnership was an insulting and discriminatory alternative.

The President ruled that marriage was a formal relationship between a man and a woman, primarily with the aim of producing and rearing children and that to give a same-sex relationship the title and status of marriage would be to fail to recognise physical reality. Parliament had not called partnerships between persons of the same-sex marriage, not because they were considered inferior to marriage, but because, as a matter of objective fact and common understanding, they were different.