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| Heterosexual couple lose civil partnership challenge | Heterosexual couple lose civil partnership challenge |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A heterosexual couple have lost their Court of Appeal battle for the right to enter into a civil partnership instead of a marriage. | A heterosexual couple have lost their Court of Appeal battle for the right to enter into a civil partnership instead of a marriage. |
| Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, from London, challenged a ruling that they could not have a civil partnership because they did not meet the legal requirement of being the same sex. | Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, from London, challenged a ruling that they could not have a civil partnership because they did not meet the legal requirement of being the same sex. |
| The couple had argued that this meant they faced discrimination. | The couple had argued that this meant they faced discrimination. |
| But the Court of Appeal dismissed their challenge. | |
| The BBC's legal affairs correspondent Clive Coleman said the couple had lost by the "narrowest of margins" as all three judges accepted that there was a potential breach of their human rights. | |
| Our correspondent said: "The government's 'wait and see' policy, which is based on looking at the take-up of same-sex civil partnerships, was found by Lady Justice Arden not to be not good enough to address the discrimination faced by heterosexual couples. | |
| "However, her fellow judges were prepared to let the government have a little more time and so the case was lost on that issue alone." | |
| Ms Steinfeld, 35, and Mr Keidan, 40, want to secure legal recognition of their seven-year relationship but have said that marriage is not suitable for them. | |
| The academics, who live in Hammersmith, west London, and have a 20-month-old daughter, say that the government's position is "incompatible with equality law". |