To not get why this heterosexual couple are campaigning for civil partnership?

[Crunchymum]

Just that really

I'm tired and haven't read everything about the case but I don't get it?

What are they hoping to acheive?

Gay couples being able to marry, I understand. This I don't.

For disclosure, i'm in a LTR with no intention to marry.

I find this campaign infuriating, largely because of the inherent homophobia in it. Sure, marriage has a patriarchal past. Most institutions that are older than 40-ish years do (universities, anyone? Women weren't even deemed worthy of Oxbridge degrees until 1948!). But civil partnerships are only a thing because large parts of society were unwilling to grant equality to gay people. How is that a better past than that of marriage?!

There's also an irritating trend to frame civil partnerships as "marriage lite", so a registration process for couples that want legal rights but aren't ready for the commitment of marriage (case in point - @Rainbunny - on this thread you referred to them being "a way of establishing a family unit without surrendering themselves to a spouse through marriage"). Massively insulting to the thousands of gay people who love and cherish their partners and in no way view their civil partnership as being a half-hearted almost-commitment.

This campaign is in no way a meaningful fight for equality. It's a solemn self-declaration of how incredibly "progressive" and "modern" this couple are. Being married is something that older, less cool people do, like being called Ian or Barbara or playing bingo or eating prawn cocktail. Not for this couple! Not in their brave new world!

I think it is important to have a second option for heterosexual couples on the grounds of equality. We currently have a situation where a certain proportion of the population are excluded from an option that is available to others, because of their sexual orientation. Everyone should have the same rights.

I do wonder, when reading this sort of thread, of how many people who post this sort of guff actually campaigned for the rights of gay people to marry, or if they only get exercised when they think straight people are missing out in some way.

I presume, Sunnymeg, that you are also vigorously campaigning for the rights of gay people to get married in church, if they want to? Because it's currently illegal for gay people to get married in the Church of England.

...because people did not want to grant traditional marriage rights to gay people.

For people read the Church of England . Disestablish the church and common sense may prevail in all walks of life.

@RomeoBunny - why on earth did you choose to recite wedding vows that made you want to spew? All you had to say was that you knew of no lawful reason why you couldn't get married, and that you took the other person to be your husband/wife. That's it. That's the entire legal requirement for a marriage. Anything else that you added in there was entirely your own choice.

@ArcheryAnnie
You are aware, I presume SandyY2K, that hetwrosexual couples get a choice that same-sex couples are denied: a church wedding in England or Wales?

Lot's of people aren't religious and the point is they get a choice between the 2. They can get married in a non religious venue.

This isn't a religious discussion. It's marriage and CP.

I don't need your sarcasm either thanks very much.

In France they have this which I always liked the sound of en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_solidarity_pact

I know a civil partnership and a civil marriage aren’t that different really, but then I think you could just as easily say well why not have a CP for heterosexual couples too if they’re basically the same. I don’t really understand why we have civil marriage in the first place - And that is because I can’t help but think of marriage as religious. To me, it’s logical to have a marriage in a religious institution and a civil partnership everywhere else. I like the ‘continental’ way where -as I understand it- you have to have a civil ceremony and then religious one if you want to

SandyY2K doesn't matter whether straight people are religious or not, the point is that they get offered a choice that gay people do not. Either you want equality or you don't: which is it?

Or are you only keen on making sure straight people have all the options available, and you don't care what gay people get?

Registrar: Are you, Romeobunny, free lawfully to marry Julietbunny?
Romeobunny: I am
Romeobunny: I Romeobunny take you Julietbunny to be my lawful wedded husband.

^^ This is all you need to say to contract a marriage. Julietbunny needs to sat the same too, obviously. Anything spew-making was optional.

Is the wording of husband and wife compulsory?

I think they're right. Both types of partnership should be available to any couple. Marriage does come with all sorts of historical baggage, but a civil partnership can be a purely legal arrangement if you want it to be.

I don't like the terms husband and wife.

They're right. I've never understood why CP was only available to gay couples.

Is this the Leeds Utd footballer and his fiancee? They're both Northern Irish and pig-sick of religion IIRC.

My understanding is that husband and wife are the legal terms used in the marriage ceremony.

@SandyY2K

I do realise it’s more or less an argument about semantics- obviously your civil marriage wasn’t something you undertook with God on your mind! However, I find it hard to divorce (lol) marriage from religion, I don’t particularly want to ‘get married’ cos it seems like I’m faking it somehow - so it’d be nice for me to have the choice to have a partnership.

I mean I don’t care enough to go to court about it but I also don’t see why the govt have blocked it - seems like it’d be very easy to change.

I've never understood why CP was only available to gay couples.

Because it was initially designed as a second-class stopgap for those pesky gays who wanted to marry but weren't allowed to.

I think it's downright offensive to imply that same sex couples have privileges that straight couples don't. These twits taking the issue to court should just get married if they want legal protection. Their need not to conform to the romantic ideals of marriage does not trump the hard fought for rights of gay people. It's a first world problem if ever I saw one

This

Out of interest, do many same-sex couples opt for a civil partnership over marriage? All the couples I know have just got married since the law changed.

I am a feminist and an atheist and I am married. We had a civil ceremony and I don’t feel oppressed.

It may have something to do with the case in Northern Ireland regarding bereavement benefits for women with dependent children, who are not married to their partner at the time of his death.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-43880588

@Greenglassteacup (and anyone else who made a similar point) - a civil partnership is the institution of marriage with a different name and a couple of minor tweaks (like, seriously minor ones - I think part of the spoken ceremony requirement for marriage can actually technically be in writing for a civil partnership, and, as others have said, adultery isn't a ground for dissolution as the lawmakers didn't want to deal with what constitutes gay sex).

Is that difference between the two institutions really enough to make one a beacon of equality and other a bastion of misogynistic religion? The substance of both institutions is exactly the same. Seems more like a case of a rose by any other name etc.

@sleep5

The contracts of marriage and civil partnerships are very similar though... where laws differ for wife and husband, both partners are generally treated like the husband would be

What are the differences between husbands and wives rights in marriage?

Civil partnerships peaked in 2006, with around 15,000 couples choosing a CP.

In 2016 (the most recent set of statistics) this had dropped to less than 900 couples.

I would be interested to know how many couples chose to convert their CP to a marriage when that option became available.

I'm in a civil partnership. Marriage wasn't an option when we had our ceremony.

Legally there's virtually no difference. My mum is delighted that her name is on our civil partnership certificate, whereas for my brothers' marriages it's only my dad. We've covered the adultery question; it's legal semantics rather than any indication that gay people get away with infidelity.

The reason this government in particular is prevaricating about extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples is that it'll look like the secularisation of marriage to the grassroots Tory base, much of which is traditional and church-attending. Anything that takes the god out of getting hitched is a vote-loser for the Conservatives.

@PinguDance

I do realise it’s more or less an argument about semantics- obviously your civil marriage wasn’t something you undertook with God on your mind!

Actually I got married in church. I'm Catholic as is my DH.

If church wasn't an option for whatever reason, I would have got married in another venue.

While I'm a practising Catholic, marriage, is equally about legality to me. It's effectively a legal contract.

Bringing religion into it just derails from the point of the thread.

Religion is a whole other topic.

For me, it's more thst CP was introduced because there was no gay marriage. Now that we have that, I don't see the need for it.

ArcheryAnnie, I'm not C of E . I'm United Reformed and yes I was part of the decision process in our denomination, which does allow same sex marriage to be celebrated by our clergy and in our buildings.