Look beyond the whinging: we don't need straight civil partnerships

Civil partnerships for the heterosexual? I ask you! But yes, this couple with too much time on their hands are going to court to try and get one.

Heterosexual people have effectively had civil partnerships as an option for decades: the registry office civil wedding. Civil ceremonies involve the legal recognition of a union. Sure, there’s some nice vows involved and an emphasis on commitment, but nothing too heavy and, as this whining bisexual, feminist writer seems to have forgotten, you don’t have to promise to obey anyone (no-one ever has in any registry office wedding I’ve ever been to anyway). The idea, therefore, that modern marriage is somehow grounded in some normative framework set exclusively on heterosexual terms (and structured to prop up a patriarchal system for good measure) is complete nonsense, and yet this is the equality-based argument for recognising straight civil partnerships.
The truth is, civil partnerships and civil marriages would be absolutely indistinct in all ways other than the terms the couple may use to describe one another. Both would involve a legal union, a service free from any religious elements and involve a wedding not recognised by the church. To assume that for straight couples the civil marriage and civil partnership are any different, fails to recognise the specific and unique issues around recognising homosexual unions that require a civil partnership option for gays.

Here’s the thing: there is a case for opposing gay marriage that goes something like this (it’s the case I make to explain my own opposition to it). Marriage was given to us by the great monotheistic religions: Christianity, in Britain’s case. Christian theology is clear: marriage exists between a man and woman – a union open to procreation. Since the churches gave us the concept, does the state have the right to hijack it? No, according to this view. Legal civil unions between men and women may just about be tolerable, especially for a Church of England that has never been all that keen on rocking the boat, but using a Christian concept for homosexual unions which clearly stand outside theological boundaries would be a step too far. What does one do about this? Give gay couples exactly the same thing as straight ones, but call it something different. Happy days!
When civil partnerships were introduced in 2005, it was a fantastic moment and a triumph for equality and fairness. The state gave any couple from that point on everything exactly the same. It was purely for political kudos and to point-score against Labour that David Cameron so willingly politicised the non-use of the M-word for gays, alienating large sections of his party whilst cynically forcing through a change to the definition of marriage and keeping very quiet about the fact that the changes made have given gay people not one single additional right.

There are gay people who feel that this wasn’t right and was objectionable politics. There are gay Christians who share the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. There are probably gay people who aren’t Christians who think that, or who simply think that ‘husband and husband’ or ‘wife and wife’ just doesn’t sound quite right. Still others believe that they would rather gay people had something uniquely their own, rather than a second-rate version of what heterosexuals have. That is why they still have the choice to opt for a civil partnership – a way to solemnize their relationship and make a commitment to each other before family and friends, that is more compatible with their religion, politics or mere personal preference. Whether civil partnerships will someday be replaced by legal gay marriage as the sole option remains to be seen, but I hope not. Yes, the status quo is not perfect, but for gay people, there is a choice that reflects the dividing lines between homosexual people: those at peace with the notion of gay marriage, and those who aren’t.

Similarly for heterosexuals, the system as is already reflects the major dividing lines. Proponents of a heterosexual civil partnership can make all kinds of claims about marriage historically, but they fail to see that they are only talking about religious marriage – the binding commitment made in the eyes of God. I may not agree with their dim view of marriage, but I see clearly that the civil marriage is already the perfect choice for those who either don’t do God, believe that marriage has historic implications and links to oppressive social norms that they don’t want to be associated with, or just don’t like the church wedding (swap that for any other faith you like). These are the issues that the heterosexual majority are mostly divided on when it comes to commitment choices. For them, too, the system as is now already reflects that fault line. Some people seem to believe that equality and difference aren’t compatible, and that if one lot can use one word, things are more equal if another lot can use it too. Some people also love finding any excuse to play the professional victim. We could complicate matters by devising endless terms for much the same thing in a hopeless quest to make everything absolutely the same whilst preaching ‘diversity’ with no sense of irony. Or, people can just stop moaning, accept what we’ve got and realise that, if you don’t like it, couples always have the choice to choose nothing at all.