Civil partnerships for straight couples? Let’s just reform marriage completely

Jan 20, 2016 by Jill

By Rupert Myers, Telegraph:

Will the straight agenda stop at nothing?

A man and a woman, Charles Keidan and Rebecca Steinfield, have just been given permission by the High Court to challenge the government’s refusal to allow them a civil partnership. It’s not immediately obvious why two straight people should want a civil partnership. On the other hand, it’s far from obvious why anyone would oppose such a thing.

In a way, it’s an indication of how far we have come on gay rights: a legal construct originally created especially for gay couples – a “seperate but equal” arrangement – has now been made obsolete by the advent of gay marriage. And of course allowing straight people access to civil partnerships is not the greatest injustice of our time. But it’s just one of the many oddities of the mess we have created around marriage and partnership – a mess in need of reform.

For example, there are still differences between straight marriages and gay ones. Straight marriages can currently be annulled for non-consummation. Yetbecause civil servants couldn’t define consummation in gay marriages, they left it out. This may seem trivial, but it is a symbolic disparity in a system developed specifically to remove symbolic disparities. So long as there is a legal difference, there is inequality.

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