Be Excellent To Each Other

Hmm... seems the Home Office's consultation on gay marriage is still ongoing. I just hope this doesn't get kicked into the long grass.

What's the difference between a marriage and a civil partnership, legally I mean, not the ability to get married in a church etc...?

I don't think there is one.

I always thought they conferred more or less the same rights and duties on a couple as marriage does, except that you can't call it a marriage because doing so makes Jesus cry (or something).

As for the US, there's an interesting table on Wikipedia (yeah, I know...) here. Looking at it, the laws in the several states on prohibiting gay marriage or civil union don't seem to fall into a straight North/South, rich state/poor state divide.

Then i'm not really sure of why gay marriage is a big deal? But then i've never really had cause to think about it either way.
Is it just a name and recognition thing, or is there more to it?

Well, nice to know that 500,000 of our fellow countrymen are bigotted fuckwits don't like gay marriage:

'Coalition for Marriage'.

Apparently, it would 'sideline' existing couples, cost jobs, and, of course, harm our children:



I thought monogamy was an early redefinition of marriage in the first place.

Name and recongition I think. Currently, the different terms gives an implicit suggestion that civil partnership is different to marriage. There's one area where the distinction is important: gender resassignment. I have a friend who is currently undergoing the transition phase. When she finally gets the gender recognition certificate, her existing marriage becomes immediately annulled, and she and her wife will have to apply for a civil partnership because two women cannot be married.

Hyperbole, perhaps, but how would you feel about black people having to get "Blackied" rather than "Married"?

It's an artificial distinction that doesn't need to exist, whose only purpose is to state that gay people are 'different'.

True, but in equal hyperbole, how do you feel about having to be married even though you are not religious, wouldn't you be happier in a civil partnership?

Just playing devils advocate.

Removing the artificial distinction is a lofty enough aim in and of itself. I was wondering if there was more to it than that?

Marriage isn't necessarily a religious thing. We got married in a civil ceremony and there was no religion at all.

I say we approach it from a different direction - go through the law books changing "marriage" to "civil partnership".

Everyone wins!

What's the past participle of "civil partnership", anyway? "Civilly partnered"?

"Uncivilly separated?"

Well, yes, that was kinda my point

Marriage is a religious institution, so calling you married could be deemed offensive to an atheist, especially as you had a civil ceremony. Shouldn't you be in a civil partnership really?

I didn't mean what I said, did I? Stupid language rule words.

Not really.



In a state of Wedlock is what we should say. It sounds cool.

My point was that it isn't. My marriage has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity or any other religion. It is recognised by the state and that's it, but it's still marriage and not civil partnership.

Marriage annuls wills. If you have gotten amrried, get your wills updated.

Heh, "Marriage annuls Wills" could be about the emaculation of the heir to the throne.

EDIT: Foreign marriages also causes many, many, problems with determining immigration status of people in this country.

Sure, in the generic sense that definition is correct, but in Europe and the UK in particular, since the middle ages marriage has been officiated by the church, it's only very very recently in the historical sense that civil partnerships have been allowed. I'd argue that in the UK, marriage is quintessentially religious.

Totally not the case. Religions didn't invent it, nor do they own it. It's just that some practitioners of those religions have co-opted it as a cause to support their bigotry.

See my post above.

In that case, a religion that liked homosexual people would be allowed to perform same-sex marriages. That's forbidden, and still would be under the proposed change

I keep writing a reply then finding that I can't be bothered and I can't even articulate everything I want to say anyway. Briefly; having the distinction between marriage and civil partnership makes no difference legally, but socially it does. It allows close minded people to reassure themselves that we're being kept different and that there is justification for that.

"Because that's what it used to be like" is the worst reason for anything at all ever, though.

I think it's probably quintessentially religious to someone who is religious. I've always thought of marriage as having absolutely fuck all to do with religion. Most people have funerals in church too, does that mean that dying is "quintessentially religious"?

Agreed. But it is forbidden under laws that were defined by religion. There have been various acts over the past 500+ years or so that only recognise a marriage if it is a religious ceremony and that it is between a man and a woman.

There have been recent (in the historical sense) acts that have repealed the need for marriage to be a religious ceremony, but for a very very long time before that, in Europe, marriage has been defined by religion.

That fact that it isn't now is great, but i'd still argue, that in many people's mind, both in religion and out of it, marriage is still a religious ceremony.

So, as mentioned before, lets scrap the term "marriage" and make everyone a civil partner

I don't disagree. But attitudes are slow to change, there is a huge amount of history to overcome.

I think you are overstating the significance of religion in marriage to most people by an absolutely massive amount. Most people get married in church out of tradition, it has nothing to do with religion.

Dying isn't, but a church funeral ceremony is...

Right so funerals are religious only if they are in church but weddings are religious wherever they happen?

Must be extremely infuriating, Gilly. Hopefully this is something that will be corrected in time. Sooner rather than later I hope.

Attitudes are even slower to change when they aren't forced to. Legalising gay marriage makes it more normal. Maybe that won't change the attitudes of people who are dead against it right now but for future generations, growing up in a country where gay marriage is legal and exactly the same as heterosexual marriage, that can only be a good thing. Having the civil partnership vs marriage distinction is harmful and allows people to believe that these homosexual relationships are different and require separate classification.

Considering that around 80% of weddings happen in a church, i'd say that makes it a similar argument.

Fair point, and I agree with that

Can't find it now, but after a row I had a look at where people get married, and it's nothing like 80% in church. All I've come up with is 60% civil from 2002:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1894660.stm

80% church is in the US (http://www.soundvision.com/info/weddings/statistics.asp) but why let location get in the way of a good argument

Can heteros get civilly partnered or are we stuck with boring old "religious" marriage? If the distinction is historic religion pish then I want lumped in with the homo heathens

As per the car thread - apparently insurance companies want to use 'partner' for homosexual and 'common law' for heterosexual non-married couples.

No. Civil partnership is specifically defined in law as a same-sex relationship.

"Common law marriage" is a myth, it doesn't legally exist. The insurance companies are bad and they should feel bad.

I want to be uncommon law married. Like one of those weird laws from 1540 that are still rumoured to exist on statute books. A marriage where on the fourth Tuesday of May I and my wife are permitted by law to throw poo at poor people, or similar.

Discrimination! I'm not religious. Why am I getting lumped in with those nuts* just because I'm a man that loves wimmins?

*Is jokes**, innit.
**My words I mean, not religions. Religions is SRS BSNS!

"Common law marriage" is a myth, it doesn't legally exist. The insurance companies are bad and they should feel bad.[/quote


There are some different rules between the two as well. When I got married we both went to the council offices and had to sign some stuff saying we weren’t bigamists etc. After that they put our intent to marry on a board that anyone can come and look at. I wasn’t happy that my address etc was all over this and asked why this wasn’t the case with the civil ones.

The women said they kept the address off the civil ones to stop abuse etc at people’s addresses. What made me laugh was that on almost every one of the civil ones the ceremony and the reception were the same place, so it was clear where people where people would be on the day.

The Torygraph are reporting that Cameron will hold a free vote in the Commons on gay marriage to stave off internal dissent. Assuming, of course, that the current consultation isn't kicke into the long grass.

No link as I'm on my Ipod.

Are free votes also anonymous? Otherwise I question the "freeness" of them...

They'd better not be. We'll need a list, come the revolution.

No, a free vote menas no whips. People are still counted in and out of the lobbies.

Secret votes in Parliament would be a bad thing-voters need to know what their MP has been up to, and punish or praise them accordingly.

Then a free vote is just a vote without an explicit party whip line.

I struggle to see any real difference in likely outcome between that and a whipped vote, to be honest.

Yes, because politicians are just robots who conform to the official party line. Like Nadine Dorries.

Yes, in the vast majority of cases, as far as I can see.