Same-sex marriage shows civil partnerships were ‘never enough’
27 Mar 2014 02:00 PM
As the first gay and lesbian
couples in England and Wales prepare to walk down the aisle this Saturday (29
March) to get legally married, research from the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) shows that civil partnerships could never have met the demands
for full equality between gay and straight couples. In the latest edition of
the ESRC magazine Society Now, Dr Mike Thomas, Social Policy
Lecturer, argues that civil partnerships were a useful stepping-stone, but were
always a poor substitute for marriage.
"In terms of recognising
couple relationships, marriage is the only game in town," said Dr Thomas.
"Marriage is engrained in law, culture and social rituals, and it was a
tall order for civil partnerships to gain social and cultural standing
alongside such a key institution.
"Civil partnerships looked
like a fairly bold move back in 2005, but they already appear inadequate as a
long-term solution, as reflected in the government's decision to legislate
for marriage equality," he said
The study, at Cardiff
University, found that same-sex couples in the UK welcomed the introduction of
civil partnerships in 2005, as they provided them with much needed legal
rights, and made them feel more included and recognised by
society.
Couples with children said that
civil partnerships allowed them to be seen and officially recognised as
families, offering them a status their children and others could understand and
relate to. Civil partnership ceremonies also provided opportunities for family
members as well as friends, neighbours and work colleagues to acknowledge gay
and lesbian relationships. For same-sex couples this was often a source of
great satisfaction, affirming and cementing long-standing relationships within
their social networks.
But other couples felt that, for
them, civil partnerships failed to have the same meaning as marriage. The words
'civil partnership' were unfamiliar, sounded bureaucratic and lacked
the social status and cultural meanings that went with marriage. People
weren't sure whether they could say they were getting married, or whether
they had to awkwardly say they were getting 'civilly partnered'. In the
early days, some couples even had to explain to family members, hoteliers and
caterers what a civil partnership was when booking their
ceremony.
The government is currently
consulting on whether to abolish civil partnerships, open them up to straight
couples, or keep them as they are. Although civil partnerships may well be
pushed aside by same-sex marriage, it is important not to overlook the
contribution that civil partnerships made towards the greater visibility of
same-sex couples in UK society, and to challenging negative social attitudes
towards homosexuality.
"Civil partnerships
performed an important role in providing legal rights and increasing the
visibility of same-sex couples," says Dr Thomas.
"Setting up a parallel
status to marriage was probably never going to work in the long term because
marriage is such an important social and cultural institution. However without
civil partnerships we wouldn't have got to same-sex marriage in 2014, so if
we think about civil partnerships as a stepping-stone to fuller equality, they
have done their job," he adds.
However it is important to note
that, he said, just because gay and lesbian couples can now get married, this
doesn't mean that the fight against inequality is over, as a significant
minority still see same sex relationships as socially
unacceptable.
Further
information
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Notes for
editors
- This release is based on the
findings from 'Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Partnerships and Stigma: Coming in
from the Cold?' funded by the Economic and Social Research
Council.
- Dr Mike Thomas was the lead
researcher on the project at Cardiff University. Dr Thomas is now a Lecturer
in Social Work within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social
Research at the University of Kent.
- The project examined lesbian and
gay couples' attitudes towards civil partnerships and same-sex marriage, as
part of a comparative study involving 45 same sex couples in the UK, the USA
and Canada.
- The Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on
economic and social issues. It supports independent, high-quality research
which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The
ESRC's total budget for 2013/14 is £212 million. At any one time the
ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic
institutions and independent research institutes.
- The ESRC confirms the quality of
its funded research by evaluating research projects through a process of peers
review. This research has been graded as good.