It’s been ten years since a gay Liverpool-based couple made history.
Kieran Bohan and Warren Hartley, who live in the Princes Park area of Toxteth, were the first couple to celebrate a civil partnership in a religious building in the UK. On the day of their blessing, May 6 2012, the two were joined by around 150 people as they signed the register at Ullet Road Unitarian Church. The service was written by themselves using various Christian traditions.
Kieran, the coordinator for Open Table Network and Warren, a 46-year-old secretary, first met in November 2007, through their involvement in groups for gay people of faith in Liverpool when they bonded over their love for the outdoors.
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Kieran, a 51-year-old originally from London, said: “Me and Warren had been going to the same group for a while but we had never been there in the same week. When we started chatting, we realised we both like walking, going out in the countryside and hikes. As we were talking, we were both wearing the same hiking shoes in the same colour. They weren’t just Nikes or high-tops they were walking shoes, a very particular brand that only walkers wear. I bought mine in Liverpool, Warren bought his in Australia but on that night we both ended up wearing the identical pair and it definitely broke the ice.”
The couple’s relationship was sped along by a mutual friend who played matchmaker and the two began officially dating in December the same year. Just two short years later, they got engaged at Sydney's famous opera house while visiting Warren’s homeland in Australia.
Much to the Ullet Road Church's delight, the pair were then granted the first civil partnership in a religious setting in the UK in 2012. They celebrated in style with an owl flying down the aisle to deliver their rings. Angela Howard, who was the lay minister of the church at the time, previously told the ECHO : “Many Unitarian churches have conducted blessings for same-sex couples for many years, either to complement a legal civil union or simply to affirm a relationship. We are so pleased to have the first civil partnership on religious premises, but we will continue striving for all couples to have equal access to civil marriages, religious marriages and civil partnerships.”
Kieran and Warren’s love story then went viral, however, for all the wrong reasons. News outlets had reported the couple had got married despite it being not possible for same sex couples to marry in 2012. Their inaccurate story reached as far as India and with the exposure came hateful comments.
Kieran, who has lived in Liverpool for 19 years now, added: “We wrote our own civil partnership service and we wrote it really carefully to avoid language that was about marriage because it wasn’t marriage, it was something else. We tried hard to avoid the very thing that had happened.”
Marriage between same sex couples was legalised throughout England and Wales the following year and those who had a civil partnership were offered the chance to convert their partnership into a marriage. Those who accepted the offer, also had their marriage date backtracked to the same date of their civil partnership. Kieran and Warren were amongst those who decided to do so and celebrated once again towards the end of 2015 with their close family, friends and fellow church members.
A decade later and the couple are still actively involved in what first brought them together - LGBTQ+ Christian faith groups.
