"As long as there are registrars available who aren't so fussy, it shouldn't be a problem.

These allowances for religious distaste for perfectly legal activities become a problem when no other service is available."

I disagree. As a civil servant, you can't pick and choose which bits of your job you want to do. You have certain duties, and it is your job to uphold them.

Civil partnersghip is NOT a religious ceremony, and issues of religion should be utterly irrelevant.

I don't like the idea of my taxes facilitating institutionalised prejudice. Civil partnership is now a fact of life in the UK. If there are registrars who feel they cannot perform the ceremony, maybe they should have thought about other career options in the many months leading up to the legalisation of civil partnership. I believe most councils offer re-deployment schemes.