A GAY couple have made history by announcing their engagement in The Times today.

John O’Connor and Mark Jones, from London, plan to take advantage of legislation expected to come into force in the autumn which allows gay and lesbian couples to form legally recognised unions.

After their civil union, Mr O’Connor and Dr Jones will have their partnership blessed at an Anglican church in West London, followed by a reception for 50 people at Dr Jones’s club, the Athenaeum.

It is the first time that the announcement of a civil partnership between a same-sex couple has been printed in The Times’s Forthcoming Marriages column in the paper’s 220-year history.

The announcement reads: “A period of engagement is announced between Mr John Christopher O’Connor and Dr Mark Bryan Jones, both of Islington, London. Following the enactment of the ‘Civil Partnership’ legislation expected later this year, the couple will announce the time and location of both the civil union and subsequent church blessing ceremonies to interested parties.”

Many of their relations will have been unaware that they intend to have their partnership officially recognised until today’s announcement.

Dr Jones, 41, a psychiatrist, had a five-month internet courtship with Mr O’Connor, 33, before meeting him. He said yesterday that he hoped that issuing a public statement would encourage people, including his own and Mr O’Connor’s parents, “seriously to consider the value of gay relationships”.

When they met in 2002, Dr Jones was to marry a woman — and had announced that engagement in The Times. His middle-class, Catholic background had made it difficult for him fully to come to terms with his sexuality until then, he said. When he was in his early twenties, he broached it with his father, who he says refused to speak to him for a decade.

“I do not think a civil partnership is the same as marriage because marriage is, in a sense, about children,” he said. “But there are parallels in terms of the equality and validity of our relationship. We have lived together for 17 months and John has loved me through the ups and downs of quite a serious illness.”

Mr O’Connor, a travel agent, proposed to Dr Jones, in St Lucia last month, where they exchanged rings. He has been openly gay since his teens. “There are still a lot of people who are openly homophobic and I hope that when the Civil Partnership Act comes in, a lot of things will change,” he said.

MPs defeated a Tory wrecking amendment to the Civil Partnership Bill last November, voting to allow gay couples the same property, tax and pension rights as married people. The Bill includes a court-based procedure for “divorce”.

“It (the Act) means emotional stability and the same rights as a married couple” said Dr Jones. “It also might show other people how seriously committed we are to each other.

“My parents still see it as ‘their fault’ that I am gay. All my life I have tried to appease them and it has not been a success. If they want to be part of our lives, they have to make the effort.”

Mr O’Connor and Dr Jones are also drawing up a “pre-nuptial” agreement over Dr Jones’s earnings before they met.

A survey last year by the gay newspaper, The Pink Paper, found that 70,000 gay or lesbian couples were considering some form of commitment ceremony. Relate, the marriage guidance service, is planning courses to prepare gay people for civil partnerships.

Sir Elton John and his boyfriend David Furnish have indicated their intention to take advantage of the Bill as have Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, and his partner, Neil Dalgleish, a BBC producer.

CIVIL UNION IS VIEWED AS A MARRIAGE

• Same-sex couples will be entitled the same pensions, property, social security, housing and employment rights as married people, including a “divorce” procedure
• A marriage and a civil partnership differs in that a marriage is validated when consummated between a man and a woman
• In a civil partnership, the nature of the sexual relationship is not directly addressed
• Many gay people view the Act as permission to marry in all but name
• Although the Act has been made law, procedures have not yet been set up. They are expected to come into force in the autumn
• In the interim, many councils have introduced non-legally-binding Civil Partnership Registers
• Some parishes have allowed unofficial blessings of gay relationships. The Bishop of Lincoln, the Right Rev John Saxbee, told staff to draw up the liturgy in which those in “non-marriage relationships” are able to give thanks for their union
• The Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, has endorsed a new book of prayers, The Naked Year, which includes a prayer for the blessing service of a lesbian couple

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