Michael Peck raised an interesting point about whether we are inclusive when reporting significant wedding anniversaries. Michael emailed the following: ‘I’ve just received a copy of the August bps news and on page 22 it talks about significant wedding anniversaries of 50, 55 or 60 years. I feel this is discriminative against lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people because civil partnerships were not legal in England until 2005 and LGB marriages in England and Wales were not legal until 2014 and 2020 in Northern Ireland. So to achieve the 50th anniversary target, with my civil partner, I would need to reach 88 years of age, assuming I was in a civil partnership from the very start in 2005, which I wasn’t. To reach the 60th anniversary target I will need to reach 98 years of age!’
I raised Michael’s point with the society council and we agreed to amend the wording under ‘Anniversaries’ to read: ‘If you would like us to publish a significant wedding or civil partnership anniversary, please send us details.’