Heterosexual civil partnerships

[Nearly Sane]

Well isn't that lovely

what is your issue with it?

[Robbie]

I don’t want to get married again but I’d like some legal protection should I choose to cohabit with a partner. While cps exist I’d like the right to opt for one.

I guess it's about property and pension rights tho would have thought one could make a will & property is usually in both names. Also most pension schemes allow you to name whoever you want to receive it in the event of your demise.

Half the joy of cohabiting without marriage is not having legal ties & being independent.

So I still don't quite get it but am not objecting to civil partnerships for heterosexual couples if they really want them.

[Rhiannon]

Financial protection is essential if there are children involved. It’s not just about the property rights of both partners but ensuring that the kids will be adequately housed following a breakup.

Legal ties can be easier to dissolve than emotional ones and independence has nothing to do with a piece of paper. Plenty of cohabiting couples have one partner who is controlling.

[Robbie]

Thanks for that Rhiannon. I wasn't thinking of a couple with children but of a couple who have perhaps been married and had children with their spouse & now setting up home with someone else, each having financial independence. I've tried hard to word all that carefully to avoid misunderstanding, it seems I've not been as clear in some posts as I intended.

It's an interesting idea, I've always thought of civil partnerships as a kind of concession to gay couples before they were able to marry but there's obviously more to it than that.

If civil partnerships were created to give same sex partners the same legal rights as married couples when they were not allowed to get married,, and now they can get married, surely civil partnerships are no longer needed and the logical thing would be to scrap them?

That is what I thought Spud but now not sure.

[Robbie]

Rhi already said that but Spud was primarily talking about adultery which apparently (I didn't know) is not grounds for dissolving a civil partnership.

It's all quite complex LR, I think I'll have a break from thinking about civil partnerships for a while :-).

[Steve H]

You seem to forget gays often have children too.

Biologically, only one member of a gay partnership can have one child.

[SusanDoris]

Funny I didn't realise that!

Who said? Even if the nHS will pay for only one pregnancy(and I have no idea if that is the case), then money would pay for other pregnancies I should think.`

[Robbie]

I wouldn't have thought the NHS could afford to do that at all! Thought surrogacy was a strictly private thing. My eyes are opened!

[Rhiannon]

I wouldn't have thought the NHS could afford to do that at all! Thought surrogacy was a strictly private thing. My eyes are opened!

I think SD is referring to IVF.

[Rhiannon]

Rhi already said that but Spud was primarily talking about adultery which apparently (I didn't know) is not grounds for dissolving a civil partnership.

It's all quite complex LR, I think I'll have a break from thinking about civil partnerships for a while :-).

Adultery is grounds, but is included under the ‘unreasonable behaviour’ grounds. In fact it is ‘sexual infudelity’ in CPs. The reason? In marriage law adultery is only penetrative sex between a man and a woman. You can’t divorce someone for adultery if they have sex with someone of the same gender. You can divorce them for unreasonable behaviour.


This makes a lot of sense as adultery isn’t always viewed as a dealbreaker. Furthermore, adultery is treated as ‘worse’ than unreasonable behaviour in marriage law at present in the sense that costs are more likely to be awarded in an adultery case, or so I’ve been told - so sleeping with a colleague is viewed as more damaging than domestic violence. It’s a joke.

[Robbie]

I think SD is referring to IVF.

Possibly, I know people can have three goes of IVF on the NHS but gay couples don't have IVF  . I'm confused now  , thought Steve and LR were talking about gay people.

Adultery is grounds, but is included under the ‘unreasonable behaviour’ grounds. In fact it is ‘sexual infudelity’ in CPs. The reason? In marriage law adultery is only penetrative sex between a man and a woman. You can’t divorce someone for adultery if they have sex with someone of the same gender. You can divorce them for unreasonable behaviour.

This makes a lot of sense as adultery isn’t always viewed as a dealbreaker. Furthermore, adultery is treated as ‘worse’ than unreasonable behaviour in marriage law at present in the sense that costs are more likely to be awarded in an adultery case, or so I’ve been told - so sleeping with a colleague is viewed as more damaging than domestic violence. It’s a joke.

Yes it is.

[Rhiannon]

Possibly, I know people can have three goes of IVF on the NHS but gay couples don't have IVF  . I'm confused now  , thought Steve and LR were talking about gay people.

Gay women often use IVF and sperm donors.

[Harrowby Hall]

Pedant alert:

Biologically, only one member of a gay partnership can have one child.

May I just slightly rewrite this:


Biologically, only one member of a gay partnership will be the parent of any child.

Your use of "can" introduces the likelihood of infertility in one partner.

Back to normal service.

[Nearly Sane]

Pedant alert:

May I just slightly rewrite this:


Biologically, only one member of a gay partnership will be the parent of any child.

Your use of "can" introduces the likelihood of infertility in one partner.

Back to normal service.

What about adoption? Steve's post seems correct to me. And I don't see the link to infertility.

[Harrowby Hall]

It is the use of "can" which implies a physical capability.

[Nearly Sane]

It is the use of "can" which implies a physical capability.

Which is surely more accurate than 'will'. Given that the child might be adopted how does it make pedantic sense to say biologically one of the parents will be related?

[Harrowby Hall]

Which is surely more accurate than 'will'. Given that the child might be adopted how does it make pedantic sense to say biologically one of the parents will be related?

Why don't you ask Steve H? It was his assertion Biologically, only one member of a gay partnership can have one child. that I was considering. I can see no reference in his statement to adoption.

[Steve H]

I'd've thought my post was perfectly clear. Even with IVF and what-have-you, a child has one father and one mother, biologically, so if a gay couple have a child, at least one of them is not biologically related to it.

[Harrowby Hall]

Your original statement was clear, Steve H.

I had succumbed to pedantry and was merely considering that you had used the wrong verb: "can". I had it thumped into me (literally  -  our Tory masters do so love the idea of grammar schools) that "can" means physically able. Hence the conclusion that your statement meant that one partner  would be infertile.

Apologies.

[Steve H]