Religious institutions have been priced out of offering civil partnership ceremonies by high licensing fees, according to Unitarian ministers and liberal rabbis.
Councils are charging churches and synagogues up to 16 times more for a three-year licence to hold civil partnership ceremonies than for a permanent licence to conduct marriages, Guardian research has revealed.
The two-tier charging has been seized on by campaigners for gay marriage as a further sign of the need for reforms.
Marriage in England is very expensive by American standards. English parishes charge about $600 and other vernues are more expensive. Thank God for the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. American marriage licenses cost from $25 to $100 – North Carolina is $60.