lesbians & bisexual women - marriage vs civil partnership

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Turning things on their head, I gather some straight people have protested about not being allowed to do a civil partnership!

What is the world coming to…?

I’ve been CP’d for 7 years, with my partner for 30 ! Cp was a welcome step but I personally would like to be able to get married, I don’t go to Church because I feel it doesn’t accept us and not being able to get married just confirms my feelings

Norberte, I’m not gay, but as a christian I find it very upsetting that the catholic church and many anglican churches want to stop same sex marriages. Actually I have stopped going to my local church, since the Rector mentioned that the bible is against women bishops and same sex marriages. I hate the idea that people twist the words of the bible (which in many cases were written by Paul who was a misogynist ),to justify their own prejudice. Even if homosexuality was a sin (which I don’t accept), since when did the church prevent sinners from getting married?
It’s obvious to me that people with life-threatening diseases would want to make a commitment to each other before god (in fact my hubby and I have been talking about re-newing our vows for the same reason), so it’s just plain cruel to prevent this.

My partner & I had our civil partnership six years ago, pretty much as soon as it was possible to do so. While it would have been more equitable for Labour to have brought in same-sex marriage, rather than the curiously business-like contractual civil partnerships, I think the current focus is a Tory ploy to gain some kudos which doesn’t involve any spending, while fanning the flames of homophobia. But then, secondary BC has made me very cynical . . .

As for getting married, my partner and I aren’t of the same faith, so we wouldn’t be able to have a religious ceremony, even if we wanted one. Our civil partnership was pretty much what you get with a registrar office’s marriage. Not a dry eye in the room when we said “in sickness and in health, until death do us part”. As you can imagine.

xx

HI eveyone, yes indeed what a hot topic! I am CP’d and wouldn’t want to be married, but I do think everyone should be allowed to be CP’d…have said so on the Home Office consultation - so anyone out there who agrees you can put in your twopenneth on the website, takes about 3 mins.
And yes lemongrove, what a shocker all this religious posturing…sorry to others on here who may aree with it, but thats just my view.
Happy weekends everyone,
N

I’ve always been very wary of marriage because it seems to be based on ownership which sounds nasty to me.My partner and I are not CP’d but if we decided we wanted to formalise things and to ease issues re wills etc then I would rather have the CP option left open not marriage. Having said all that I will fight for the right of other dykes to have a wedding if that is what they want. Not big fisticuffs fighting obv but i might well shout and stamp my feet.

D x

Hello ladies,
I’ve been CP’d since last year and together for 13…had a civil ceremony(official) and then a beautiful humanist ceremony and full blown service and a ceilidh in the evening, set in a beautiful old converted church…to be honest it was everything I would have wanted, I’m not religious but agree that it means a lot to some people to be included in their own faith…in our eyes we are married and no one I’ve met regards us in any other category. Breast cancer gave me the courage to be open and come out to all our family and friends, all of who came to the “wedding” including 20 of my breast cancer buddies…Strangely I have a lot to thank breast cancer for.

Fee xx

Radio 4’s Moral Maze discussed marriages for same sex couples last night. I was playing taxi driver so got to listen to the whole thing. Some interesting opinions expressed. Might be worth iplayer investigation…

Oh norberte, thanks as ever for interesting reads and laughs per line - perhaps a new thread…how many laughs can you get per line…guess you’d be a winner.
Lovely to hear from everybody again, be careful out there, Nx

Yes, the “legal” next-of-kin aspect of having a CP was important to us, too - I really didn’t want my brother (who lives in another country and with whom I’ve never had much of a relationship) to be in a position to make any decisions about my care or well-being.

My partner and I had never had any difficulties in health care situations (GP, hospital, hospice) of getting recognition for her, but we really wanted to ensure her position was legitimised in law - there’s always a possibility of experiencing discrimination, or even “jobs-worth” mentality.

Interestingly, we don’t really relate to our CP as much of an emotional event, and often forget to celebrate it. We’ve been a couple for almost 30 years now, and consider our original “getting together” all those years ago as our anniversary, rather than the date of our CP. But that’s probably fairly common for us older dykes who were together for so many years before the government let us formalise our relationships.

xx

What a great idea, N.! Given my health situation, we worried that we shouldn’t wait until October, so we had our CP in January 2006, on my partner’s 60th birthday weekend. xx

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