Would gay marriage undermine the exalted status of heterosexual marriage?

[Pruni]

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Ruth 21 - I know!! I think we're financially better off at the moment because Juno is seen as single Mum and only working part-time. I'm not sure to be honest how it would affect us if we got 'married' and then were re-assessed. I suppose it's just about equity. It bugs me like mad that when I was having problems TTC, my GP refused to refer me for Clomid because my dp had already had our ds - even though by law I've got no rights to him if anything happened to her - I'm not his legal next of kin, and of course I didn't have him, my GP's argument was that if us gay people wanted equity I should be treated the same as being in a heterosexual couple with one child and therefore not be entitled to automatic fertility treatment!

I couldn't agree more about equity, but it either has to be all or nothing..!!

(sorry - getting off the point here )

for gods sake. marriage is a legal contract. nothing more, nothing less. i dont understand people who have a joint mortgage, but refuse to have a marriage certificate. obviously they have their reasons, but it seems silly to me. equally, people who go on about being joined in 'god's eyes in holy matrimony' also seems silly.
its justa business contract.finito

That's it folks, those of us who are gay, or religious, or have certain views, are all 'silly'.

Oh, I'm sure it's a fab institution, stitch; I just don't want to live in an institution

[1] Absolutely not. I think that if two people wish to have their relationship legally recognised, they should be allowed to do that, regardless of their sex.

[2] Yes. If people are unhappy in a relationship, whatever the reason and whatever other people may think, they should be able to dissolve the marriage.

[3] Absolutely. I agree with previous posters that we are becoming used to the idea of "me first", "I want" and that if something doesn't work, exchange or refund. Getting married is too easy, not divorce!

[4] Not a positive one. Women are not as dependent upon their husbands as they were even a generation ago. Then, husbands were definitely the main, if not only, breadwinner. Divorce often meant severe financial harship for a woman then. I think things are different now. Women are far more able to be finanically self-sufficient post-divorce nowadays. Women don't NEED to stay in a bad marriage. Making divorce more difficult would just mean lots of women living apart from their husbands but without the legal freedom to move on.

[5] Am always sceptical of this kind of research.

i agree with blu - and vote blue for primeminister however ith inkt here should be an additon

the custardo clause
if you get married you cannot spend more than £1000 in total. anyone found having a "party" within 2 weeks of the ceremony which is suspected of being a wedding reception costing more than the aforementioned £1000 will have their marriage terminated.

i also agree with stitch in that i fail to understand why non religeous people get married if there is no or little legal benefit. with the exception of WWW's reason of turning off life support - that made me larf

just wanted to throw the whole "rite of passage" thing into the pot, which doesn't seem to have been discussed. Societies - of various religions, mixed religions, no religions, spritual, secular etc etc - have been conduting ceremonies and celebrations around something you could call "marriage" for thousands and thousands of years. I don't think "marriage" is primarily a Christian thing, a Muslim thing, a religious thing, a spiritual thing, or primarily a legal thing. I think it's primarily a cultural thing. I think it reflects something fundamental about human nature. And cultures change and evolve, which in my mind means gay marriage is a natural, cultural change.

Hatstand - I agree, although of course gay people have been having 'marriage' ceremonies since forever - they just haven't meant anything legally. All our friends have been nagging us to do something like this for years (bless them, they don't think it's right that we've never been able to put a wedding list together! ) but I wouldn't if it actually had no legal standing. When ds1 was born we decided to have a huge 'do' - kind of like a wedding reception thing + 'blessing' for him, but by then we were too poor to do it.

Anyway, just wittering away here so I'll go now..!

In some ways the "institution" (ref. motherinferior) is anachronistic but there has to be a way of validating certain rights between people or over other people with regard to children, property, inheritance, medical decisions etc. Other than two adults simply agreeing amongst themselves. There has to be some kind of proof in the state's eyes.

Don't wills, powers of attorney and parental responsibility orders deal with all those, Cam?

I'm not anti-marriage per se, actually. Just never got round to it myself and I definitely don't want to marry 'for the sake of the children'.

They don't give you the right to inherit money from your partner free of Inheritance Tax MI, or the right to pass assets between you free of tax. The instituion of marriage is still financially supported by the state (albeit to a far lesser extent than it used to be) which is very unfair to people who live as if married, without wanting to go through the ceremony.

Here goes: marriage is a sacrament when performed in a church. I seem to remember from my marriage vows that one of the reasons for marrying is for procreation, among many other reasons. Until such time as gay couples can procreate, they should not be married within a church but should have their own marriage, with all the legal & social rights & recognition. This is my personal opinion. I think it is abhorrent that same-sex couples do not have the same legal rights as hetero couples. The most important aspect of marriage is the love & commitment it implies. Breaking from tradition should be just that, though. No marches down aisles, resplendant brides in meringues, mothers sniffing into hankies, rice or confetti throwing, etc. you get the general idea. Let homosexual couples marry but let them have a marriage designed especially for them & not based on tradition.

or the right to inherit pensions etc. - certainly my dp hasn't got the same rights to my pension payout if I died, than a married spouse would. I think we've got our kids covered because of parental responsibility and wills, but all the same it'd be nice to know everything about our relationship was recognised and as 'valid' as a married couples'.

dot1 haven't some companies recognised gay partners' rights wrt pensions etc? I appreciate it's not enough though!

Personally I am delighted that civil partnerships for same-sex partnerships will be legal from the end of the year and I fully intend to take advantage of it (racing dot1 to see who gets to be Mumsnet's first lesbian bride!).

Often in these debates I think people don't grasp just how legally vulnerable gay couples are, especially when they have children. My dp and I are expecting our first and she has NO legal standing in relation to the child. I know that unmarried fathers are also disadvantaged compared to married fathers, but they are at least recognised as existing in the law of the land.

It is humiliating that I have had to ring dp's family members from hospital - where she was having complications in surgery - to ask them to ring the hospital to find out what was going on, because the staff wouldn't tell me.

It is ridiculous that dp has no legal obligation to support the child that we have planned and will raise together.

It is scary to think that if dp died tomorrow I would have to leave our home, along with our baby.

You see, logic, it's far more than 'just a tax break'. It's about the basic legal securities that most families take for granted.

I agree with everyone who has said that the whole thing needs rethinking from scratch. It's a nonsense that we will now have four different legal statuses and arrangements for marriage, civil partnership, cohabitation (heterosexual) and cohabitation (homosexual).

LOL Custardo - if (when) I am PM, I would very much like you to be Chancellor, and institute your ammendment.

Can I just say that I think this thread IS one of MN's finest hours - the married and unmarried, religious and secular, subscribers to beliefs which preclude gay marriages within religious context and people who endure disadvantages as a result of their sexuality, all discusing this perfectly reasonably.

(except me rising to stitch's comments, which I should not have done.)

Hester - at least unmarried fathers can appear on a birth certificate - I presume that the partner-mother of a biological mother does not?

That's right, Blu.

I must admit it made me feel a bit weird when we had ds2, that our donor father automatically as parental responsibility rights - there was a change in the law a couple of years ago and now unmarried fathers automatically have this - so our donor father doesn't have this for ds1, but has it for ds2! I've got PR for ds1 - applied through court and was succesful, and we've got to do the same for dp and ds2.

Sorry I was being a bit flippant earlier when I brought the 'tax break' thing into it - it's surprising how much things like this can mean to you when you think about them! dp and I are lucky we've got fab families with no problems with us/our family set up - but if anyone watched the last series of ER - that situation (i.e. family of birth mother fighting for custody of baby, and being able to just take him away automatically) is a potential for all families like ours - dp sat and sobbed through all those episodes!!

WWW - you're right, a lot of companies now make provisions, but I work for the largest organisation in the Western world (the NHS) and they don't...!

Hester, you've made me think about it all a lot more seriously. Thank you.

You know where to come if you want a couple of fetching small bridesmaids

to add to Motherinferiors post - you know where to come when sending out hen night invites

Do you think marriage will be devalued if gay people are allowed to marry? No, i dont care who chooses to marry who, it has no impact on my life in any way. so if joe wants to marry josie, john or bluebell the cow, i dont give a rats a*se.

Do you feel that the relative ease of divorce is a good thing or not? Why? i think that divorce should be easy but getting married in the first place should be hard - you should be made to really plan and think about your choice and the long term implications, instead of your princess fairy tale day!!!!! i have known people who spend more time choosing their CAR than their partner!!!! if people gave more consideration to the act of marriage i think there would be fewer divorces as a lot of incompatable people wouldnt get married in the first place! (course, that doesnt help if your spouse suddenly turns into a serial psycho killer 12 months after you get wed! - you cant predict everything!!!!!!)

Do you think people have a rose-tinted view of marriage and are less prepared to work at it these days? oh yes, totally!! "the second there's a row i'm out the door", or "when i stop feeling butterflies i have fallen out of love", shows, imo, unrealistic expectations!!

If we went back to the days when divorce was difficult, what do you think would be the effect on women's lives, if any? womens? dont you mean peoples!!! - usually one of each involved you know(well, at the moment!!) i think that the days of staying in an unhappy marriage are gone and making the act of divorce more difficult wouldnt make people stay together, they would seperate anyway, it would just maybe mean fewer second marriages so you would find more people living together while on paper they are married to someone else.

And lastly, he is vehement that studies exist showing that children from families where the parents have a marriage certificate are statistically more likely to do better than children from families where there are two unmarried parents. Have you ever heard this? I find it hard to believe. i have heard this. i have also heard that the children of single parents are more likely to be involved in criminal acts. i have also heard that children would rather mum and dad stayed together no matter how much arguing and that '2 happy parents living apart is better than unhappy parents living together' is not the opinion of most children! i have also heard that there are lies, damned lies and statistics!!! you can make studies and statistics say whatever you want them to!