Tolerance plea on gay partnership

David Davies and Paul Baccara have been together for 27 years

The first gay couples in Wales are staging civil partnership ceremonies and urging opponents to accept change.

Across Wales and England nearly 700 same-sex couples will hold ceremonies on Wednesday, the first possible day.

Some church groups, including the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff - and others - are critical and claim it will undermine traditional marriage.

But the Reverend Martin Reynolds, who plans his own ceremony next year, said gay partnerships were holy and sacred.

The Civil Partnership Act came into force on 5 December, when couples could give notice of their intention to form a partnership.

It will give gay couples the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, but there were some protests in Northern Ireland and Scotland when ceremonies were held there earlier this week.

Last month, Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff the Most Rev Peter Smith said that to place beside marriage "what appears to be a perfectly approved legal alternative lifestyle" did not help the institution.

I don't think people realise the hardship we've been through to get to this day Paul Baccara

However, Paul Baccara, an independent Rhondda Cynon Taf councillor who will hold a ceremony on Friday with his partner of 27 years, David Davies, 52, described it as a momentous day.

Mr Baccara, 47, who represents Talbot Green, said he wanted to set an example in a "dignified and proper ceremony".

"It's no different to any other celebration where two people declare their love for each other," he said.

Mr Baccara, who has been out since he was 16, said he did not agree with the term gay marriage, however.

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"The word marriage is a religious word for the procreation of children, but of course there are many heterosexual couples who don't have or want children."

He admitted, however, that both had suffered pre-big day nerves, even though they had been planning it for several months.

'Absolutely thrilled'

"It's a momentous day for homosexual people throughout the country," said Mr Baccara.

"I don't think people realise the hardship we've been through to get to this day."

Cardiff-based journalist Mike Smith, who is planning a ceremony with his partner of 29 years, said: "I just hope that the church can catch up with society.

"I'm just amazed how all my family, my friends, including a large chunk of my family in Northern Ireland, where I grew up, are absolutely thrilled that society has grown up and reached this stage. All I hope now is that the church can grow up and join us."

We, like lots of gay families, have our children and we want to bring them up with a sound economic and legal base The Reverend Martin Reynolds

Martin Reynolds, communications director of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said the clergy should accept that gay relationships were "holy and sacred and wonderful before the eyes of the law".

"The Bible is absolutely stuffed full of people of same sex relationships whose love for each other is a wonder to behold," said Mr Reynolds.

Mr Reynolds, who has been with his partner for 26 years, said some in the church wanted to go back to an earlier era, but society had moved on.

"We, like lots of gay families, have our children and we want to bring them up with a sound economic and legal base so that there are no problems if either of us should die.

"And we also want to go to church with them and feel that we are warmly accepted and loved, and I think the civil partnership allows us that one step closer.