Romance, Rights, Recognition, Responsibilities and Radicalism: Same-Sex Couples' Views on Civil Partnership and Marriage

2008 ◽  
pp. 173-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Clarke ◽  
Carole Burgoyne ◽  
Maree Burns
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Thomas

This paper investigates conflicting narratives available to lesbian and gay couples as a result of marriage and civil partnership. Whereas marginalisation may have made stories of exclusion particularly resonant for same-sex couples, marriage and civil partnership offer scope for new stories around inclusion and equality. Drawing on empirical research with married and civil partner same-sex couples in the UK, US and Canada, the paper contrasts couples’ atrocity stories with new stories about acceptance and inclusion. The paper argues that these new stories should be seen as triumph stories that point towards a tangible impact arising from marriage equality and civil partnership. However, the presence of atrocity stories alongside these triumph stories provides evidence of a more limited policy impact. In conclusion, the paper highlights the relevance of atrocity stories in an emerging area of public policy, as well as the likelihood of triumph stories being relevant in other contexts.


Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072097861
Author(s):  
Aspa Chalkidou

This article analyzes how parenthood gets established as a defined sexual category predicated on the exclusion of imagined deviance. Examining the Greek state's policies on reproduction, public discourses over non-heterosexual kinship, and the LGBT movement’s claims for the institutional recognition of same-sex parenthood, I analyze the circulation of sexual concepts and ideas through the cultural notion of parenthood, their imbrication with policies on family and reproduction, and their connection to broader national, political, and reproductive imaginaries. Through a careful reading of the “Greek case,” a nation where same-sex couples can now enter a civil partnership, but who nevertheless lack any legal recognition of same-sex parenting, I argue that political attachments to parenthood have implications for understanding other forms of institutionalized reproduction, including the academic re/production of scholarship on kinship and sexuality, labor law, and the reproduction of state authority.


2019 ◽  
pp. 92-94
Author(s):  
Jane Sendall ◽  
Roiya Hodgson

This chapter discusses the scope of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA 2004) which came into force on 5 December 2005 and the formation of civil partnerships. It outlines civil partnership and same-sex marriage under The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013. It also explains the differences between civil partnership and marriage. The CPA 2004 enables same-sex couples to form legally recognized civil partnerships. Once a partnership has been formed, civil partners assume many legal rights and responsibilities for each other, third parties, and the State. It does explain that adultery, however, is not a fact to establish the ground for dissolution of a civil partnership as it is in marriage.


Family Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 92-94
Author(s):  
Roiya Hodgson

This chapter discusses the scope of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA 2004) which came into force on 5 December 2005 and the formation of civil partnerships. It outlines civil partnership and same-sex marriage under The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013. It also explains the differences between civil partnership and marriage. Once a partnership has been formed, civil partners assume many legal rights and responsibilities for each other, third parties, and the State. It does explain that adultery, however, is not a fact to establish the ground for dissolution of a civil partnership as it is in marriage. The Civil Partnership (Opposite-sex Couples) Regulations 2019 are also outlined.


2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 755
Author(s):  
Jens M Scherpe

This article discusses and compares the different concepts of civil partnership around the globe: either as functional equivalent to marriage for same-sex couples only or as an alternative to marriage for all couples. It analyses its declining role in the wake of widespread marriage equality reforms and then discusses, in particular, the current position of England and Wales, and Scotland, where ill-conceived law reform has led to a situation in which same-sex couples are privileged and opposite-sex couples are discriminated against. 


Author(s):  
Jane Sendall

This chapter discusses the scope of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA 2004) and the formation of civil partnerships. It also explains the differences between civil partnership and marriage. The CPA 2004 enables same-sex couples to form legally recognized civil partnerships. Once a partnership has been formed, civil partners assume many legal rights and responsibilities for each other, third parties, and the State.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Hayward

OPPOSITE-SEX couples are prohibited from forming a civil partnership. Following the introduction of same-sex marriage, the Civil Partnership Act 2004 was not extended to opposite-sex couples, resulting in the unusual position that English law permits same-sex couples access to two relationship forms (marriage and civil partnership) yet limits opposite-sex couples to one (marriage). This discrimination was recently challenged in the courts by an opposite-sex couple, Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who wish to enter a civil partnership owing to their deeply-rooted ideological opposition to marriage. Rejecting marriage as a patriarchal institution and believing that a civil partnership would offer a more egalitarian public expression of their relationship, the couple argued that the current ban constitutes a breach of Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beccy Shipman ◽  
Carol Smart

In this paper we map briefly some of the arguments around the meaning and significance of the introduction of Civil Partnership in England and Wales, and in this way show how contested these meanings are with some groups profoundly against this legal reform and others supporting it, but for a mixture of reasons. We then turn to our empirical data based on interviews with same-sex couples to explore the extent to which these arguments and issues are part of the everyday decision making processes of same sex couples who have decided to register their partnerships or to undergo a commitment ceremony of some kind. In doing this, we were interested in how people make their own meanings (if they do) and whether they actually frame important decisions in their lives around the ideas that are part of the current political debates. We are interested in whether the public debates (such as legal equality) are featured in the accounts of our interviewees but we are also concerned to reveal whether other issues are important to same sex couples when they decide to have their relationship publicly recognised in some way. We found for example that while equality and legal rights were important, love, commitment and respect from wider family featured just as strongly in people's accounts.


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