Civil partnership, Supreme Court decision

[Singlenotsingle]

Decision just announced that a heterosexual couple can have a civil partnership. Bit ironic really- gay couples wanted marriage, and now hetero couples want civil partnership. Surely there's no need for CP if you can get all the protection s through Wills, house in joint names etc and stay single?

Agree that pre nups now need to be made legal and then everyone has a full range of choice.

I find it odd that couples want to legalise/formalise their relationship but don’t want to marry, if you’re making the effort of going to the registry office, then why not marry? It seems like a similar procedure and civil partnerships can be converted into marriage. Marriage doesn’t have to be the big proposal and wedding, just have the legal ceremony which you still need with a CP.

I wonder how many of the MNs who post about partners refusing to marry can convince them to have a CP instead, although I suspect a commitment phobe wouldn’t agree to CP either as it’s “just a piece of paper”.

Tinky This has been explained upthread

The main issue to me is that marriage is supposed to be permanent, for life, isn't it? Yet reading through this forum there is no way you could consider it to ensure a lifelong bond. There are too many ways for even the happiest couples to fall apart, and it is now widely considered unacceptable for a couple to be trapped in marriage if it is making either of them unhappy.

A civil partnership is also supposed to be permanent.

A civil partnership is temporary?

I am pretty sure this government of twats will just abolish civil partnerships rather than extend them to all.

On the basis there's not been much take up since equal marriage.

Overlooking the fact it isn't gay couples wanting that choice now, it's the people who aren't allowed and therefore can't take up the option.

'Overlooking the fact it isn't gay couples wanting that choice now'

Hundreds of same sex couples are choosing CPs every year, even since marriage became an option

I said this on another thread but- Legally they're more or less identical: marriage has a lot of historical patriarchal baggage, all of which has been stripped out from the legal side of it, some of which persists in the cultural and optional side of it (e.g. White dresses, name changing) and civil partnership has much more recent homophobic baggage, which persists in the legal construct- basically, adulatory isn't a consideration because gay sex isn't 'proper' sex.

A form of civil partnership as exists in other European countries which is a lower level of legal protection and easier to get out of would make sense but that was never what existing civil partnership was about, it was all about denying gay people full rights. I can - and have - enter into a marriage construct while eschewing all the sexist components of it, there's no way to do that with civil partnerships.

I'd happily campaign for a form of civil partnership that offered an interim step for people and gave more protective to currently unmarried couples, but I don't see how this will do that as people reluctant to marry because they don't want the co-mingling of assets, etc, will recognise quite quickly that this is identical. The only people it will help if it is extended to all is those who object to the name.

I think it’s a victory for common sense & hope it gets the full green light.

@TinkyWinky40 DP and I don’t want to marry, for various reasons. We’d have a CP if it was available.

Great!

DP recently suggested marriage after we buy a property, for the legal protection, etc. Havent fully looked at the alternatives but it is cheaper than having all the other legal stuff drawn up (probably cheaper than just consulting a solicitor about it!). Explaining we have become civil partners would be much easier than explaining we have secretly got married, and are sort of not acknowledging it. I want to remain a partner, not a wife with a husband. We could do the whole marriage thing without all the extra BS, but I would really prefer a CP. I hope it gets through.

adulatory isn't a consideration because gay sex isn't 'proper' sex.
This isn't the reason.

Adultery isn't about fidelity, but about ensuring somebody's bastard doesn't get your family money. To prove adultery you have to satisfy the court that an erect penis went all the way up the vagina. Seriously, there's a load of really pervy Victorian case law about flaccid willies and incomplete penetration.

It's nothing to do with gay sex not being real, It's just a function of the fact that CP doesn't come with the baggage of marriage.

Adultery for same sex marriage is still intercourse with someone of the opposite sex. Intercourse being penis in vagina sex, no buggering about with anal.

I'm sure the OP has now realised they're mis-informed

I'm just staggered that public money has been spent opposing CPs for heterosexual couples. Of all the poor decisions that are made in government, this really shocked me.

Wouldn't it just be easier on everyone if a law was passed saying after xx years of co_habiting you are considered common law married with all the legal protection. Of marriage

I want one of them things, exactly the same as that thing over there but I want you to call it something different so I know that this thing which is exactly the same as that thing is, in fact, a different thing.

It’s not exactly the same though is it

If you’re going to take the piss at least know the facts first!

No @frasersmummy because some people actually don't want to be married, at all.

@SoddingUnicorns how is it different?

I can see an advantage over marriage in that dissolving a civil partnership won't have the same social stigma of divorce. But since CPs and marriage are legally almost the same, and since gay marriage is now legal in the UK, CPs do seem pointless.

Well for a start you’re not married, you’re not husband and wife, the wording is different and the actual partnership is different.

It’s not rooted in misogyny, it’s not linked to religion and it’s not something that uses words to tie you together in (for me personally) a negative way.

There’s no ceremony, it’s signing a piece of paper to ensure you and your partner are covered legally. From what I’ve read you don’t even need to sign at the same time, so there’s none of the pomp and ceremony. So it’s most of the legal advantages (the important ones) without any of the other baggage.

Which is why I’d have one. Nothing against anyone who chooses to get married. It’s just not for me and I’d be happy to have a less wordy, less loaded alternative.

@SoddingUnicorns you've summed up most of my own reasons pretty well. Ta!

Wouldn't it just be easier on everyone if a law was passed saying after xx years of co_habiting you are considered common law married with all the legal protection. Of marriage

I think this is ridiculous. Why bother getting married then? And what about people that let partners live with them but, don’t want them gettting a share if their house or to be bled dry if they split?

How do you prove you were co-habiting not just housemates? Or do housemates eventually become married in common law?

It is useful for all to consciously enter a legal arrangement not just something that happens to you.

Same sex relationships have had "blessings" in Church already (even C of E which is banned by law from same sex marriages), just like you can have a blessing after a registry office wedding.

There’s no ceremony, it’s signing a piece of paper to ensure you and your partner are covered legally. From what I’ve read you don’t even need to sign at the same time, so there’s none of the pomp and ceremony.

That's sort of correct but makes it sound more informal than it actually is. It is modelled on the same requirements as (civil) marriage for the most part. So you have to give notice to the register office in the same way as you do for marriage. You have to register the civil partnership in front of the registrar and two witnesses in the same way as marriage. The registration has to take place in approved premises in the same was as for marriage, in fact any non-religious location that is approved for marriage is also approved for civil partnership. Sure you don't have to have pomp and ceremony but you don't for marriage either. Essentially registering your civil partnership is just the same as a marriage, it's just that you don't have to speak the legally required words, just acknowledge on paper.