Oddly, I just assumed that there were civil equivalents to "marriage" that weren't marriage.
Oddly, I just assumed that there were civil equivalents to "marriage" that weren't marriage. I guess that's probably not true here, either? Like, you don't have to have a religious ceremony, but it's still called "marriage"?
Edit: I should say that I suspect there are some people who want to create false equivalencies with the lack of rights to actual marriage that LGBTQ couples have faced and that's not at all something I agree with. I do like the idea of having a choice as to whether you want to call what you are doing by a term that is attached to thousands of years of religious and chauvinist baggage, or not. Whatever it is called, everyone should have access to the same rights and privileges in this regard.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39039146
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39039146
Edit: I should say that I suspect there are some people who want to create false equivalencies with the lack of rights to actual marriage that LGBTQ couples have faced and that's not at all something I agree with. I do like the idea of having a choice as to whether you want to call what you are doing by a term that is attached to thousands of years of religious and chauvinist baggage, or not. Whatever it is called, everyone should have access to the same rights and privileges in this regard.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39039146
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39039146
Yep. I think that's why the semantics of gay 'marriage' have always been important. A hetero couple could always bypass the church and go to the courthouse, but a gay couple didn't have that option.
ReplyDeleteThat battle needs to be addressed before the whole baggage of "marriage" versus "partnership" as a construct gets hashed out in legal semantics. I just don't see why if it's legally recognized in Gibraltar, which is British territory, it isn't recognized in Britain.
ReplyDeleteThat really makes no sense (obviously I didn't read the article, just your comments).
ReplyDeleteIn .nl, we started by introducing "samenlevingscontracten", cohabitation contracts, which were just literally notaries drawing up civil contracts under contract law that specified some things that are ordinarily covered by marriage law, like common ownership of stuff etc (the ones that can be covered by contract law, basically). These are open to anyone, including more than two and brother/sisters (usually the unwed children still living in the parental abode..), when properly written. Then when we introduced civil partnerships, in part to address the wingnuts claiming the gays were getting special privileges, these were kept open to any two people not banned by incest rules, regardless of gender. Quite a few hetero couples did them. I believe the only difference in rights and duties toward each other under civil partnership and marriage were initially the default custody rules for children. Then we opened up marriage to any two people, and slightly after, the rules for marriages and civil partnerships were completely equalized and afaik there is now no longer any difference between the two other than the term.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, there has been a complete separation of church and state for a while here; what you do in church is totally up to you, but regardless of how many pastors or priests call you married, if you haven't gone in front of an officiant employed by the government, you're not married. A standard wedding day for religious people would typically include a ceremony at city hall as well as one in church, although certain groups do the legal formality at city hall a few weeks before or after, whenever it's convenient.