Civil partnerships to be opened to opposite sex couples

And you're right - there are no arguments for why opening up CPs is a bad idea. Just a load of denial about patriarchy, and a load of sneering and nastiness, and complete refusal to accept that many people feel uncomfortable with marriage

Lottapianos, do you still feel that way after the more recent posts?

Turph does make a very good case.
I have always thought I would have preferred a civil partnership, but maybe marriage was and is just in need of change from the inside so it's no longer so much about patriarchy and religion.

I understand where I didn't before as well. Which is interesting as previously I would have been very keen to have a CP with my long-standing opposite sex partner. Now I feel like it would be insulting to same sex couples with CPs, and I feel that I wouldn't take it up if it became available.

Yes, I really see this point actually. Equal marriage was not available, so civil partnerships were created. I think it's fair to say that not wanting equal marriage wasn't a particularly fair basis for creating civil partnerships, but the LGB community embraced the idea as something that was specially theirs, so they could publicly commit to each other and receive protection in law.

To have some heterosexuals demand access does look quite a bit like the privileged wanting extra things for really not very compelling reasons in comparison. It's a little bit reminiscent of straight couples wanting to colonize a gay bar. Yes, there's no particular reason why they should be excluded from a public venue, but equally, for some people, it is a little bit tone deaf to push in when there are perfectly accessible bars everywhere else.

I don't have a dog in this fight at all or really a strong opinion on cohabiting, civil partnerships or marriage. We all have to fudge institutions in one way or another, you know?

But I'd like to thank Turph for her eloquence and passion on this thread and for giving me a perspective to think about that I am ashamed to say I was lacking.

I know it's not the point, but I think opposite sex couples who would go for a CP would value it enormously.

But it's entirely likely that this will be forgotten about and then a change of government will mean its dropped and put on a back burner and not ever actually happen.

Of course we do. I lose the right to a homosexual union. I lose the right to a homosexual ceremony. I end up with the default union, that I'm begrudgingly allowed to take part in, even though half the team didn't want to pick me to play.
It doesn't mean anything unless it means something. Some posters here just want to get married/civil partnered to save tax, and aren't interested in making a public statement about being out, proud and in love because it has never occurred to them that might be massively important to other people.
Ok it doesn't have the immediacy of sexual predators being able to destroy safeguarding, but it's important to me, and I feel something has been taken from me, worse still, I feel it has been taken to give to people who don't even value what they've taken! Now I'm definitely going to bed because this is exhausting.

Ok, so heterosexual people shouldn't have asked for the ability to have a CP because it is something exclusive to same sex couples.

(What if one of the couple is bisexual... probably doesn't matter as the relationship is straight I guess).

I feel like you're saying that homosexuals had the legal stuff sorted, so the celebration and proud, defiant announcement that this was the person you were going to spend your life with - that's just paperwork so let's let mates do it or siblings do it to save bloody tax??

Errr, no. You're making stuff up projecting things onto my words that I never said.

Please don't do that.

What do you need to give up wrt the word woman? It doesn't affect anyone else
You're telling me to make room for you because you want something I have. I'm telling you I don't want to, I shouldn't have to and your issues with marriage are your problem, not mine. Surely you can see the parallels?
(Assuming in this instance you are a heterosexual who wants a civil partnership, I'm not scrolling back to find out)

FloralBunting thanks, I'm definitely a minority on this I think and that's fair enough. I'll still state my opinion and I'll call out hypocritical arguments when I see them too. I'm off to bed now though. Goodnight!

What do you need to give up wrt civil partnerships? It doesn't affect anyone else apart from those who would like to enter into one.

Turph, you've really made some excellent points in your last few posts. I'd just like to underline that while I see the genesis of the civil partnership as a compromise fudge to accommodate the anti-gay marriage lobby, I really appreciate the significance it has to the LGB community, and I certainly wouldn't see it as a lesser commitment at all, and I can see why you are irritated by some of the heterosexual campaigning on this.

Marriage comes with a lot of historical baggage for women
So does childbirth. So does inheritance. Change laws, make provision. Marital rape is illegal, contraception is legal.
It's literally the same argument we make to TRAs - it's your problem, you sort it out. Not my responsibility, I shouldn't have to give up what's mine to make you feel better.

The irony is that the thinking behind this, the "they have something I don't have" is the same thinking behind people moaning about why there's a black history month but not a white one. The same as TRAs demanding entry to women's spaces - unisex third spaces won't do, they want what you have.
I want a blue badge for parking but you know what? I'm not bloody disabled. It's not meant for me. I have adequate provision elsewhere.
Invasion of the woke, on all fronts.

Is this not good news? Marriage comes with a lot of historical baggage for women. Everyone will have a choice in future.

"the Inheritance Tax" couple.

I too was expecting Civil Partnerships to go (hence the marriage booking)

So you wanted to save tax. You were happy enough to get married too? Why didn't you just marry?

Why would I prefer a civil partnership? Because I'm out and proud, because a huge part of that day is going to be about the reality of making it in a world set up to belittle your experiences. This very thread - homosexuals getting hitched? Let anyone do it. It's just a business transaction, right?
A lifetime of "you haven't found the right man" "which one is the man" "bitch you act like a man you can take a beating like a man" "why can't you try to be more feminine" and civil partnership was two fingers to it all. It was an official stamp of approval to a homosexual couple, it was vindication. We exist, we are allowed.
Gay marriage, OTOH, pissed off the religious. For no reason other than to adopt the word "marriage". Civil partnership isn't recognised abroad - there were changes in pension rights - loopholes that needed to be filled. But marriage came in and now we could ape the full hetero experience. Cue muted cheers.
I was happy civil partnership was still available, so when it came to it I could celebrate my homosexual partnership, and not have to act like I was straight. Now that's being made available to people who don't agree that being able to marry in just about any location, wearing anything and naming yourself whatever you like afterwards is still too restrictive, and that they'd prefer that they got a new option (that many posters seem to think is marriage-lite).
Not all gay people agree with me on this, some are happy gay marriage is called marriage, some converted their civil partnership straight away too. But my feelings are my feelings on this whatever the personal arguments are for wanting civil partnership for straight people.

Isn't this all just a tom-ay-to/tom-ah-to thing now?

No reason why sexual relationships should be privileged over other relationships. And you're right - there are no arguments for why opening up CPs is a bad idea.
It's the right and ability to proclaim to the world. It's not just a business undertaking. How can you say there are no arguments against it when you haven't bothered to look? Even earlier in this thread I pointed out I thought it was a shame straight people co-opted civil partnership because they didn't want to reclaim the word wife or marriage.
Why do people celebrate a wedding? In most cases nowadays the couple.have lived together before marriage and quite often already have children together. So why do so many friends and family gather to celebrate? Why do people cry? Why is it such a happy occasion - they were together last week and nobody was cheering them were they?
Because it's a celebration. Love marriage might be comparatively recent but people seem to have taken to it

Frankly, I'd like to see CPs opened up way beyond romantic relationships so that siblings, friends, etc. could also enter into binding contracts if they wanted to.
You agree with Boris then? He wrote in 2001: “If gay marriage was OK – and I was uncertain on the issue – then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog.”
I feel like you're saying that homosexuals had the legal stuff sorted, so the celebration and proud, defiant announcement that this was the person you were going to spend your life with - that's just paperwork so let's let mates do it or siblings do it to save bloody tax??

I'm struggling to understand this idea that an opposite sex civil partnership vs marriage would somehow be less misogynistic. I don't think the name of the union matters. I just think the dynamics of an opposite sex relationship are always somehow misogynistic because you're still dealing with decades of male and female socialization. But I hope that this lessens as the generations go on.

I don't really feel like I favor civil partnerships over marriage in any kind of ideological way. I think if I got a civil partnership I might still just end up saying I'm married all the time. I don't feel offended by the word wife. I would be offended if someone said I'm "just a wife" though. And the idea of calling someone my wife doesn't bring up feeling of domination and control in me. Still, I can understand straight women feeling hesitant because there is so much misogynistic history to marriage. Just like how I know some gay people want to get married because it feels like a validation of their love. I'm a lesbian...but I'm mostly interested in just finding the right love.

But really, everyone should just do what they feel works and not be asshole partners.

I agree, Lottapianos, I will wait until this is actually passed into law and it is possible to book a CP before I believe it.

I am appalled that anyone can see this decision as progressive. LGB people have been treated horrendously in this country. Ever heard of Section 28? Do you have any idea how appalling the behaviour towards gay men was in the early days of AIDS? Do you realise that, in 2018, so-called "liberals" support transgender "lesbians" who call actual lesbians bigoted for refusing to suck dick? Do you know how many people have been disowned by their own family for being LGB?

Then, since late 2014, there has been one - ONE - area in which gay people had slightly more choice than straight people. And I mean AMAZINGLY slight. The difference between CPs and marriage basically amounts to the name! If straight people wanted to get married without any mention of religion, or without the woman changing her name, or without saying certain vows, they could already do that. It was already completely legal.

And straight people actually had the gall to complain that they were being discriminated against. "Same-sex couples have got something that I haven't got. It's not faaair." And after less than FOUR YEARS, it's been announced that the law will be changed so that straight people could have CPs as well. Four years! Four years to change the law so that straight people can also have two names for an almost identical contract. Apparently entitled straight people being precious about the word "marriage" was far more important than gay rights have ever been, and needed to be fixed much faster.

It's disgusting that straight people have the nerve to say "About time!" and, even more infuriatingly, "We finally have equality!" There is nothing positive about this. It's an ugly reminder of heterosexual privilege. It proves how much more seriously your wants are taken when you're part of the majority, even when they're as trivial as fucking semantics.

If anyone is more bothered about the patriarchal root of marriage than the homophobic root of civil partnerships, they need to take a long, hard look at themselves. And if anyone's going to say, "Oh, but civil partnerships have evolved, they're not homophobic anymore" - well, marriage isn't really patriarchal anymore, is it? It's usually far less patriarchal than cohabiting, except for the small minority of women who earn more than their partners. Men have essentially found a way to get all the perks of marriage without having to take on any legal responsibility towards their girlfriend.

If marriage were still so beneficial towards men, I can pretty much guarantee that "common law marriage" (i.e. a couple being de facto married after cohabiting for X number of years) would be legal in the UK. Men would want to force women into marriage by stealth! But they don't. Why do you think that is?