SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AND EQUALITY

In Britain (and much of the rest of Europe) lesbians and gay men are still denied equal access to marriage. Although the Civil Partnership Act, whose provisions come into force later this year, is a significant advance for lesbian and gay rights, it also perpetuates same-sex couples’ exclusion from the right to marriage itself. The introduction of civil partnerships constructs a two-tier system of state recognition of relationships that concedes to same-sex couples virtually all of the rights, benefits and responsibilities of marriage, withholding only the symbolically charged name of ‘marriage’. By continuing to exclude same-sex couples from marriage – the fundamental institution for recognition of the couple relationship – the new civil partnerships send the inescapable message that lesbians and gay men are second-class citizens. Separate is still not equal.