How Civil Partnership Laws Operate In the USA and Other Countries

 

As the gay rights movement has gained ground, the calls for legal recognition of gay relationships has grown louder. Most governments in the developed world have responded in some way, but many have stopped short of allowing gay couples to marry.

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Perhaps it is an attempt to keep everyone happy that has stopped so many politicians backing the right of gay couples to marry. They don't want to lose the support of their gay voters, yet they also don't want too many disgruntled religious voters, either. Civil partnerships seem to offer a middle way in that they give gay couples legal rights, yet do not always have the same social status as marriage, because, for some people, marriage should still only take place between a man and a woman. The fact that many gay couples have taken advantage of the availability of civil partnerships certainly demonstrates that there is demand for such an arrangement.

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Civil partnerships became available to gay couples in the UK following the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act 2004. This Act ensured that gay couples who entered into a civil partnership would have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual couples that entered into marriage. Thus, gay couples can enter into a civil partnership and obtain the same property rights and exemption from inheritance tax, as well as parental rights, amongst other things, as their straight, married counterparts.

To enter into a civil partnership in the UK you have to be entering into a legal agreement with a member of the same gender and be at least 16. If you're under the age of 18, parental consent is required, except in Scotland.

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In the USA, there is no federal recognition for civil partnerships between people of the same gender and it is basically left up to individual states to determine whether such unions are considered valid or not.

Vermont was the first state to offer civil partnerships from 2000 onwards, later followed by Connecticut and New Jersey in 2006 and New Hampshire in 2007. Other states in the USA, including California, Washington and Oregon have domestic partnerships, which give couples of the same gender some of the same rights as married, heterosexual couples. There are other states where gay couple unions are not recognised at all.

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In Canada, it used to be the case that, as in America, the status of gay and lesbian civil unions varied from state to state. However, in 2005 the Civil Marriage Act was enacted, which meant that gay couples could get married and obtain exactly the same rights as those bestowed to straight, married couples, thus making Canada the fourth country in the world to legalize gay marriage nationwide.

In Australia, every state has some kind of legal recognition of gay couples, but same gender marriage is not permitted under federal law. Attempts to legalize gay marriage nationally in USA have failed, and so gay and lesbian couples have to rely on the fact that they, ostensibly, have the same rights as heterosexual couples. Proving that you are actually living together in a gay relationship can prove a challenge in certain areas of Australia, however not all territories have a relationship registry including Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Norfolk Island. Couples therefore have to meet a number of set criteria to offer proof of their relationship status.

What is clear is that although different nations have taken their own approaches towards extending gay rights, there has been growing acknowledgement that gay individuals are actually entitled to a similar kind of protection afforded to heterosexual individuals. Consequently there have been significant moves towards enabling gay couples to enter into civil partnerships and in some areas, to be able to get married so that legally, straight and gay couples are on an equal footing.

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