Civil partnerships

[sebastiality]

I am extremely naive and stupid. How did I not know that heterosexual couples are not eligible for civil partnerships? *slaps self* How and oww?! I don't know how I managed to miss that particular detail for so long. *kicks self

Comments

[sir_rosealot]

I never want to get married, partially because even if you have a registry office ceremony the word "marriage" still carries horrible connotations of religion and sexism and procreation. I wish that civil partnerships were generally available.

[sebastiality]

I would feel the same way if I were straight!

[sebastiality]

The French system seems a bit more practical.

I do like it when government policies get messy. :)

[andy_godfrey]

Actually, marriage shouldn't really have religious connotations at all. It's a secular, legal institution that has only relatively recently been seized upon by religion (by which I mean Christianity). It should be marriage for all, and people can get married in churches if they really want.

Alternatively, maybe there should simply be the option to designate a single other person as having certain rights e.g. to visit you in hospital, to inherit your property upon death. That would be regardless of whether that person is your sexual/romantic partner or not.

[mi_guida]

Alternatively, maybe there should simply be the option to designate a single other person as having certain rights e.g. to visit you in hospital, to inherit your property upon death. That would be regardless of whether that person is your sexual/romantic partner or not.

Interestingly, this is what the CPA 2004 did. It doesn't mention love or a sexual/romantic relationship or anything like that anywhere - which is why some solicitors have suggested it (can't find article atm, sorry) to elderly friends of the same sex living together, who are heterosexual but not in a relationship, if they go to the solicitor asking to write wills with each other as the main beneficiary.

[andy_godfrey]

I guess the disadvantage of conceiving of civil partnerships like that is that it rules out the possibility of having a civil partnership as a public recognition of a committed loving relationship, rather than merely a legal formality.

So perhaps there should still be a two-tiered system - marriages for everyone (gay or straight), but also the option of purely legal arrangements for people to flexibly enjoy legal rights without having to condone the institution of marriage or all the baggage that goes with it (as Sir Rosealot points out).

[mi_guida]

The two tiered system - with optional extra religious ceremonies - would be the ideal. The legal rights alone were not the reason the CPA was brought into forc,e obviously - the fact that it can be used for same sex friends (though I don't know if it ever actually has been) is just a side effect of the wording used, which was deliberately trying not to dictate what sort of physical or emotional relationship people should be in.

I know a couple, friends of my parents, who are not married. However, shortly after university they did go to a registry office for a wedding, to get the bit of paper making them next of kin and all the monetary and everything else rights. They aren't married, though, if you ask them.

[one_to_tango]

Registry office wedding, simple.

If you don't like the cultural connotations of the word marriage, ignore it. The wedding will be secular, who has to listen to cultural comments if they don't want to?

From my point of view, registry office weddings are civil partnerships. And if that's the case, they should have just made gay marriage legal.

Hetero couples asking for a civil partnership don't seem to have got the point, IMHO.

[sebastiality]

I see. I suppose I'm so very far away from getting hitched that I've not thought about it.