LONDON – Rock star Elton John and longtime partner David Furnish led the march up the aisle Wednesday as an estimated 700 same-sex couples in the United Kingdom registered their unions on the first day that civil partnerships became, with remarkably little rancor, legal throughout the country.
Britain became the seventh European country to allow homosexuals to register their unions under the law.
Wednesday was the first day for the law to take effect in England, where most Britons live. Civil unions had begun Monday in Northern Ireland and Tuesday in Scotland.
John, 58, and Furnish, 43, who live in a $20-million country estate outside London, were attended by their parents and a small group of friends at the ceremony held in the same 17th century Windsor Guildhall where Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, were wed in April.
Then John and Furnish traveled by Rolls-Royce to their nearby estate for a star-studded party under two huge tents, where the guest list included a wealth of names from the worlds of entertainment, sports and fashion, among them Elizabeth Hurley, Victoria Beckham and Rod Stewart. The pink-champagne reception reportedly set the couple back $1.75 million.
“Rocket man and wife: Elton ties the knot,” said the front-page headline on London’s Evening Standard, with a photo of a waving John in silver tie and Furnish in black tie, both beaming in complementing morning suits.
“Of course they kissed. It was just like any other marriage service and it was wonderfully happy,” Jay Jopling, a friend, said.
John had been married for four years in the 1980s to Renate Blauel. He was a close friend to the late Princess Diana, and received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1998, a year after the princess’s death.
Another celebrity who entered into a civil partnership, Shakespearean actor Antony Sher, registered with his partner of 19 years, Gregory Doran. Sher said it was “a little bit of history being made, not just for the gay movement, but for the human rights movement.”
But some gay activists believed the new statute did not go far enough, denouncing the different treatment of heterosexual and homosexual couples before the law.
“Civil partnerships are for same-sex couples only. Straights are excluded. Conversely, marriage remains reserved for heterosexuals, to the exclusion of gays. The differential treatment … is enshrined in law. Welcome to segregation, UK-style,” wrote Peter Tatchell, of the group OutRage!
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