I suspect in the UK we are going to get a watered down version of the culture wars that have been raging in some parts of the USA recently. No sooner had Mr Cameron uttered his fateful words about being in favour of gay marriage "because I am a Conservative" than the Catholic Archbishop of Southwark was objecting with his argument that marriage is only reserved for heterosexuals. He is often quick off the mark like this and it might be useful for those in the debate to read some of Andrew Sullivan's writings first.
Civil Partnerships go back as far as 2005 and our experience is that the discourse of marriage is used by most ordinary people to describe our relationship. I noticed recently on the forms being used about me in the NHS is that I was "married". Funny, no one told me, I thought I was in a civil partnership.
"... his argument that marriage is only reserved for heterosexuals." Hmmm. Like, Apartheid is OK because restaurants are reserved only for white people? I think not.
ReplyDeleteAnd if it's really a religious thing, perhaps marriage should be reserved only for people of faith?
The marriage/CP thing is interesting as well. "Civil Partner" is a bit clumsy, "Partner" is somehwat vague, but I haven't got used to using "husband". We have lesbian friends who refer to each other (non-ironically)as "my wife", and it sounds fine, though. There is so much baggage around the terms, it's very vexing!
P.S. I cant' tell you how great it is to see that you're home again. Peter xxx