Brit gay man, straight woman spark fury after marrying for degree art project

LONDON - A gay man and a straight woman from the UK have sparked outrage after they got married for a university art project.

Nora Battenberg-Cartwright, 21, and Paul Cartwright, 20, have been criticised for mocking the sanctity of marriage.

But the couple said their union is ‘more honest’ than a traditional marriage because they can tell each other when they’re seeing other people.

“It’s about an artistic unity rather than a love union, to join each other in art and make us the art. It’s a really truthful marriage and we will still see other people,” the Daily Mail quoted Nora as saying.

“By marrying ourselves we were in effect marrying art. If we ever decided that we got to the point where we wanted to marry another person, that would be the end of the art career, really,” she added.

“But neither of us can see it on the cards, both of us expect to be old and married and continuing together. The marriage is kind of the foundation of our art. We do love each other, but in a different way,” Nora said.

Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, criticised the union.

“Marriage is not an art project, it is the life-long union of man and woman and part of that is the sexual act which is there for companionship and the raising of children,” he said.

“If their parents have gone along with this charade they are equally as guilty of denigrating the whole institution of marriage and bringing the University of Worcester into disrepute,” Green said.

“If I was marking them I’d give them no marks - what has being married got to do with art? Marriage is under attack from homosexual and civil partnerships which are an attempt to downgrade it,” he added.

The pair said while their parents were initially shocked about what they had done, were supportive and beginning to understand.

Paul, from Redditch, Worcestershire, added, “‘One of our friends said that he thought marriage was a contract or a unity between two people and that’s what this is.”

“One friend e-mailed us to say “I think you have p***** all over the idea of marriage”. I replied saying “thanks for being honest, that’s great, we can use that in our project”,” he said.

Dr James Fisher, head of Fine Art at the University of Worcester, said, “Nora and Paul are very serious students; they live together and work very closely together, and are both very committed artists.” (ANI)