Heterosexual Couple Win Court Case for Civil Partnership. I don't understand it.

anotheruser · 27 June 2018 at 11:32AM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44627990

I don't understand this at all and would love to, but I just can't see what it's all about.

Marriage and a Civil Partnership are the same thing essentially. They allow each person to declare they are together and have the same legal rights. From what I understand gay couples can't get married in a church, so a Civil Partnership was created for gay couples to have the same rights as married couples. That's great.

So, the couple in the article suggest that marriage refers to women being property.
Where is this said in a marriage ceremony at a church? Or, assuming this couple would have a registry office marriage, at a secular ceremony?

It may have been like that in the past but that's not where we are as people now. Even the last 50 years, women haven't really been seen as property like in the 1700s or 1800s.

Yes, we still have a long way to go but I just don't understand why people over think things like this when it's not that difficult to understand. So I'm not sure where their kids are going to think that women are property. I mean, kids these days barely know about the World Wars and poppies!

But I guess I'll sling them into the same pile of people where that women is who doesn't want to give her child a gender because she wants it (the child) to decide whether it wants to be a boy or a girl.

Just don't understand this or what the people are thinking.

Scorpio33 · 27 June 2018 at 11:55AM

I think the issue is that some people see "Marriage" = Married in a church. OK, technically there is no basis for this, but as churches only do marriages and not civil partnerships, so I can understand why there is a close connection between the word "marriage" and the church.

So if you wanted to get "married", but were anti-religion, a Civil Partnership seems a good compromise?

Surely its about choice - they do not want to be "Married" as they are anti-religion?

Rubik · 27 June 2018 at 11:56AM

Civil partnerships were introduced as a way for same sex couples to have a state recognised union that afforded them the benefits of marriage, at the time the powers that be thought the Uk wasn't ready to extend marriage to same sex couples. Thankfully we now have marriage equality, and couples (both opposite and same sex) can now marry in church (other houses of worship are available) and have a religious element to their marriage - or marry in a register office/other venue where religion plays no part in the ceremony. Civil partnerships in their original and intended format are now redundant.

The couple who bought the case to the Supreme court disagree with marriage as they feel is is patriarchal and oppresses women but they wanted a state recognised union without the alleged misogynistic and religious trappings of marriage. And they were right in that the CPA does discriminate against opposite sex couples, the irony is that the CPA was there to try to address the discrimination same sex couples were subjected to when it came to obtaining a state recognised union.......
Personally I feel that this couple have entirely missed the point of civil partnerships.

Silvertabby · 27 June 2018 at 11:58AM

What a waste of time and (someone's) money. The option for 'civil partnership' became obsolete and should have been removed from the statute books when same sex marriages became legal.

The couple in the article have always had the option of marrying in a registry office, and writing their own vows. There's certainly no requirement for the wife to say 'obey', or to adopt her husband's surname, even in a church ceremony!

Curiously, the financial safeguards for a civil partnership may not be as robust as in marriage. Different pension schemes have different rules but, in the case of the LGPS, when civil partnerships became law only the post 1988 service was counted for partners pension benefits. (Since amended to only apply to those who left the LGPS before 2008). In the case of marriage, however, service from at least 1978 would count (if it was a pre-retirement marriage) or all of the service if the marriage took place during active LGPS membership. In other words, civil partnerships have similar (restricted) pension rights as heterosexual co-habiting partners, rather than as married couples. Just something to consider.

FreddieFrugal · 27 June 2018 at 11:59AM

Civil partnership certificates include the names of both parents of the parties. Marriage certificates include the names of only the fathers of the parties.

Adultery cannot be used as a reason to dissolve the Civil Partnership. In a marriage, if one party is unfaithful this is grounds for divorce. This isn’t the case in civil partnership dissolution.

Also marriage is recorded on paper and civil partnership just electronically.

You don't have to have any words spoken at all in a civil partnership registration - just requires the partners to sign.

Those are the only differences really - as all other aspects such as changing names or not, nature of the ceremony and the words spoken can be decided by the couple.

I also just read this news story and didn't understand it. So I googled the differences.

I still don't really understand it.

Maybe they just both fancy a bit of adultery...but even that they could just do in marriage if they both agree to it. Unless they're afraid that one of them will change their minds...

It really is rather odd

Rubik · 27 June 2018 at 12:03PM

FreddieFrugal wrote: »

Also marriage is recorded on paper and civil partnership just electronically.

Civil partnerships do have paper certificates

Silvertabby · 27 June 2018 at 12:10PM

Also marriage is recorded on paper and civil partnership just electronically.
Originally posted by FreddieFrugal

Rubik wrote: »

Civil partnerships do have paper certificates

They do indeed - I've registered them on LGPS records.

onomatopoeia99 · 27 June 2018 at 12:21PM

You don't understand it, they do, and it seems the judges in the highest court in the land, who if you ever read a judgment from them demonstrate they have razor sharp intellect, do as well.

Simply put, same sex couples get a choice, marriage or civil partnership. Different sex couples do not. That's discrimnatory under article 14 and falls within the ambit of article 8 so is prohibited, the court has found it to be discriminatory and the ban is in conflict with the HRA and our treaty obligations to the ECHR. As such, it is now up to parliament to resolve the conflict between two of our laws. We have a concept of parliamentary supremacy, judges cannot strike down laws that have been correctly made, but if the government does not act it opens itself up to further legal challenges for compo (we know how MSEers love getting compo) using the precedent the Supreme court has provided.

The "institution of marriage", which is often talked about in exactly those words, comes with massive religious overtones, indeed the established church pretty much claims ownership of it in this country - I have heard CofE bishops say that on Radio 4 on the way to work, and thunders from the pulpits (and Sunday morning politics shows) about it whenever reform of divorce law is talked about it. If anyone cannot see the unbreakable links between the church and the concept of marriage that exist in the minds of much of society and our legislators, even when the marriage is conducted in a registry office, then they are being willfully blind to them.

Regarding the "civil partnerships are redundant" argument, in the Netherlands, another western-european democracy, where both options are available to all couples, over 20% choose civil partnerships. That's enough to say there is a demand, even if marriage is precisely equivalent.

onomatopoeia99 · 27 June 2018 at 12:25PM

Silvertabby wrote: »

What a waste of time and (someone's) money..

They were crowdfunded, at least in part. I doubt those who donated consider the money wasted.

The government wasted our money in defending the action rather than simple legislating to resolve the discrimination it created in 2013.

indesisiv · 27 June 2018 at 12:32PM

Seems like an ideal time to just get rid of civil partnerships now and have one system for all and update the marriage to include names of both parents etc.
Job done.

The main issue is that Civil Partnerships should never have been introduced in the first place, if they had legislated for gay marriage initially then we wouldn't have 2 systems.

Oh and @FreddieFrugal one other difference is that you can't say you are married, which potentially could cause issues.

catkins · 27 June 2018 at 12:58PM

Pathetic couple wasting the Court's time. If they want the advantages of marriage then get married.

To me they are just attention seekers. I married nearly 40 years ago and I certainly never said I would obey my husband

Heterosexual Couple Win Court Case for Civil Partnership. I don't understand it.

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