h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Babs, you are 100% right in what you say and I think you have it spot on. I think that many do think we should be able to register a relationship but only becuase it is an inferior model to what they can access. In other words they see our relationships as inferior so to deny us marriage is the perfect way of making this so in law and in soceity. It's a clever way of doing it in fact.

Marriage is about two becoming one isn't it in that sense. You are JOINED in marriage and make public vows and so on. The afct that CP was deliberately made nothing other than a legal contract proves that we are not seen as socially agteeable and acceptable and that all our relationship are worth is a legal contract and nothihg more.

I think there would have been a level of opposition against allowing us to marry which would have mirroed the hatred shown toards us 20 uyears ago over Section 28 and the AIDS pandemic.

I know the Irish Government was saying that a legal document was far easier to make happen than allowing us to marry and they were spot on about that and I think Tony Blair saw that to be the case as well. Allowing us to marry would never have become law becuase society would have not accepted it and opposed us becuase it would have made us equals and society considers us to be inferior.

I am glad you have noted the fact that our relationships never move on above partners - you refer to us being denied spouse status. Heterop relationships go through four stages don't they. Boyf/girlf then partners then engaged and then married when they become spouses which is the term for husband and wife isn't it. Our relationships go boyf/boyf-girlfr/girlfr to partner and then that's it. In fact, a recent study found that people don't know what to vall their civil partner in a social or business situation.

You are right that CP is a very clean and comprehensive piece of legislation, probably clearer than civil marriage. In many ways a Civil Partnership is a business arrangement isn't it as I see it akin to making a will, to signing for a morrtage, signing a tenancy agreement, signing for Sky Digital and so on as they are also legal arrangements which is what a CP is also.

Finally, on ther subject of next of kin, Civil Partners do not have the right to be consulted over the hospital treatment of our 'Civil Partner' whereas it is the spouse who makes the decisions for their husband or wife. I think that's an important thing to remember. You can thrust your CP papers into as many faces of doctors and nurses and other hospital personnel but they can still deny you access to your loved one and instead only allow access to the remote aunt from Australia who is the one who makes rthe decisions about what to do with you and whetehr to turn the lfie support machine off etc.

Babs is right that Cps are not exclusively aimed at people in relationships.

Adultary may have religious implications but it has evolved to become two people being emotionally and physically mongomous. Society thinks that we are incapable of being mononomous both emotionally and physically so therefore it would not be possible to include monogomy into a legal arrangement designed for two people of the same sex to enter into a legal arrangament. In addition, you can't expect two friends to consumate their CP so for both reasons it would not be possible to include sexual fidelity into the legal document of Civil Partnership.

>>Babs is right that Cps are not exclusively aimed at people in relationships<<

CPs aren't 'aimed' at anyone and neither is marriage. They are services offered by the government, for people to take up if they so choose. The government doesn't ask for motives, it is simply assumed that most people entering into either contract is doing so because they are in a relationship. With both contracts, there are examples where this is patently the case.

The GT article gives it chapter and verse where it is in the law books why adultery isn't a reason for dissolving a CP. You counter it with an unqualified assertion from a blinkered, borderline-bigoted, worldview. I know which one I'll go with...

Just get over it Rill, the hetties don't hate you, and they aren't all out to get you. They don't sit together cackling, figuring out ways to disadvantage you.