A rchive Date
[ 01-07-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Britain ]
|
[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/06/30/123762-ap.html
British gay couples to get legal recognition under new proposals
By MICHAEL MCDONOUGH
Mon, June 30, 2003
LONDON (AP) - The British government unveiled a plan Monday to extend to gay couples most of the rights enjoyed by married people, but critics complained the plan discriminates against heterosexuals.
Jacqui Smith, deputy minister for women and equality, said the Civil Partnership Registration Scheme would remove many of the problems gay partners face because their relationships are not legally recognized.
"Civil partnership registration would underline the inherent value of committed same-sex relationships," she said. "It would open the way to respect, recognition and justice for those who have been denied it too long."
The plan would only be available to same-sex partners in England and Wales. It would give gay partners the right to have joint state pension benefits and responsibility for each other's children. If one partner dies, the remaining partner would be able to register the death, claim a survivor pension and enjoy a range of inheritance and tenancy rights.
The partnerships would be registered in the presence of a civil officer and two witnesses, and there would be a formal, court-based process for dissolution.
Couples would not have to live together for a certain time before registering, Smith told the British Broadcasting Corp. But unlike married couples, they would not have the right to an official civil ceremony when registering their partnership - the only major difference, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, which oversees equality issues.
"It won't be the same as marriage," Smith told the BBC. "But what it will share is the responsibilities and the rights, recognized in law, that I think it's important for the government to put in place."
Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell attacked the civil partnership scheme for being "heterophobic" because it does not apply to opposite-sex couples who cohabit but do not wish to marry.
"Cohabiting heterosexuals also lack legal recognition and protection," he told BBC radio. "This is a grave injustice."
Evan Harris, a spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, said the decision to exclude non-homosexuals "will be a bitter disappointment to hundreds of thousands of heterosexual unmarried couples."
The main opposition Conservative party, long a supporter of traditional values, said its legislators would be able to vote freely on the proposals when they come before Parliament.
Nine other countries in the European Union already have provisions for recognizing same-sex partnerships, including Belgium and the Netherlands, which recognize gay marriages.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|