STRAIGHT COUPLE SEEK CIVIL PARTNERSHIP
A London straight couple, Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle, plan to challenge the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships by filing an application at Islington Registry Office in London this Tuesday, 24 November at 10.30am.
They want “heterosexual equality.”
The denial of civil partnerships to straight couples is, they say, “discriminatory and perpetuates legal inequality.”
Doyle and Freeman expect to be turned down by the registrar but they plan to get the refusal in writing, with view to taking legal advice and appealing the refusal.
“If necessary, we are ready to take our appeal all the way to the European Court of Human Rights,” said Mr Freeman and Ms Doyle.
The couple’s equality bid is backed by the gay rights group OutRage! and by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. He will join them on 24 November when they give notice of their civil partnership at Islington Town Hall’s Registry Office.
Mr Tatchell commented:
“We are against both homophobic and heterophobic laws. In a democratic society, everyone should be treated equally. There should be no legal discrimination. The ban on same-sex civil marriage and on opposite-sex civil partnerships is a form of sexual apartheid. It is one law for straight couples and another law for gay partners. Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said.
Outlining the reasons why they decided to opt for a civil partnership instead of marriage, Katherine Doyle said:
“We have been together for three and a half years and would like to formalise our relationship. Because we feel alienated from the patriarchal traditions of marriage, we would prefer to have a civil partnership. As a mixed-sex couple, we are banned by law from doing so. By filing an application for civil partnership, we are seeking to challenge this discriminatory law.
“Our decision is also motivated by the fact that we object to the way same-sex couples are prohibited from getting married. If we got married we would be colluding with the segregation that exists in matrimonial law between gay civil partnerships and straight civil
marriage. We don’t want to take advantage of civil marriage when it is an option that is denied to our lesbian and gay friends,” she said.
Doyle and Freeman will be giving notice of their intention to form a civil partnership at 10.30am, on Tuesday 24th November 2009 at Islington Registry Office, Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, London, N1 2UD
Tom Freeman (25, civil servant) said:
“We want to secure official status for our relationship in a way that supports the call for complete equality and is free of the negative connotations of marriage.
“If we cannot have a civil partnership, we will not get married. On a point of principle, we will remain unmarried until opposite sex couples can have a civil partnership and same-sex couples can have a civil marriage.
“We are taking this stand against discrimination and in support of legal equality for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.
“The ’separate but equal’ system which segregates couples according to their sexuality is not equal at all. All loving couples should have access to the same institutions, regardless of sexuality. There should be parity of respect and rights,” he said.
Katherine Doyle (25, civil servant) added:
“We don’t like the institution of marriage. We would much prefer a civil partnership. It is time there was full legal equality, with both civil marriage and civil partnerships open to gay and straight couples. We want a choice and all other couples should also have a choice, irrespective of their sexuality.
“Just as lesbian and gay couples should be able to have a civil marriage, civil partnerships should be available to straight couples who don’t like the institution of marriage,” she said.
Under UK law, same-sex couples are banned from civil marriage and heterosexual couples are banned from civil partnerships (called civil unions in the US).
Mr Tatchell commented:
“The ban on heterosexual civil partnerships is heterophobic. It is disciminatory and offensive. I want to see it ended, so that straight couples like Tom and Katherine can have the option of a civil partnership.
“I applaud their challenge to this unjust legislation,” he said.
Yes, I think straight people should have the right to a civil partnership if they believe marriage is patriarchal, sure.
But isn’t it a bit bizarre to call the lack of the right to heterosexual civil partnerships “heterophobic” or “heterophobia”!
What would “heterophobia” mean? The systematic oppression of heterosexuals? And the way Tatchell uses the term symmetrically with homophobia: “We are against both homophobic and heterophobic laws”. Is “heterophobia” an equivalent oppression to homophobia? Of course not! Capitalism organises society around the nuclear family in order to reproduce itself on the cheap, through unpaid women’s labour in the home. Thats why it institutionalises sexism, heterosexism and homophobia. Thats why queers are oppressed.
Of course heterosexuals are also oppressed by this system of gender and class. But its not ‘heterophobia’! Thats just a silly word play that undermines and trivialises real claims about oppression. Nice campaign, but get a grip Peter, you should know better!
Comment by Barry Kade — 23 November, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
Barry- what you say makes sense, but I have a horrible premonition about where this thread is going (see the previous 2 or was it 3? on the subject of Peter T.)
As someone with legal training but next to no knowledge of matrimonial law, I would find it ueseful if someone could explain the legal differences between a marriage and a civil partnership.
Comment by Armchair — 23 November, 2009 @ 12:41 pm
To add - of course Outrage are right to fight against the segregated system where straight = marriage and Lesbian and Gay = civil partnerships. And this is a clever way of exposing it. I’m just opposing the coining of a silly term like ‘heterophobia’ !
Comment by Barry Kade — 23 November, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
I agree with Barry about the heterophobia issue. It’s like claiming that white people experience racism. But I support what this couple and Outrage are doing. If it can challenge the current discriminatory legal system then I’m all for it.
Comment by Ray — 23 November, 2009 @ 1:03 pm
Ray,
Are you for real? You really don’t think white people can suffer from racism?
Here are just two examples of violent anti-white racism that, due to attitudes like yours, were never treated as such, with the first one being both racist and homophobic though that was also ignored in this case:
“SALEH:DRUNKEN THUGS SPARED JAIL FOR SHAMEFUL ATTACK ON COUPLE
WHITECHAPEL, LIMEHOUSE, STEPNEY GREEN, EAST LONDON. Three thugs who punched and kicked a couple in an unprovoked attack have been spared jail after blaming alcohol for their shameful behaviour. Muhamed Saleh and Mohammed Areif, both 22, and Golam Dhuha, 23, screamed ‘white faggot’ before laying into Matthew Hayes in Whitehcapel, east London.”
http://www.courtnewsuk.co.uk/online_archive/?name=saleh&place=STEPNEY+GREEN&courts=0
Another case:
“Anthony Walker and Christopher Yates, concerned about female friends late at night, walked with them to bus stops in Liverpool and London respectively to make sure that the women got home safely. Both were set upon, not far from homes they shared with their mothers, by other young men from their own neighbourhoods who had been drinking heavily or taking drugs.
In Huyton, Liverpool, Mr Walker, 18, who was black, was attacked by Paul Taylor and Michael Barton and killed with a savage blow to the head with an ice axe. They were sentenced to at least 24 years and 18 years, respectively. In Barking, East London, Mr Yates, 30, a white man, was knocked to the ground and kicked and stamped on by Sajid Zulfiqar, Zahid Bashir and Imran Maqsood.
Every bone in his face was broken in a ferocious attack. Afterwards, Zulfiqar boasted in Urdu: “We killed the white boy. That will teach a white man to stick his nose in Paki business.”
But while a judge in Liverpool decided that Mr Walker’s murderers were racists — and therefore liable to more severe jail terms — an Old Bailey judge decided that Mr Yates’s murderers had not been motivated by racial hatred. Zulfiqar, Bashir and Maqsood were sentenced to 15 years in prison, the minimum tariff for murder.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article745230.ece
Comment by Normal Bloke — 23 November, 2009 @ 5:38 pm
Normal Bloke- Whether or not white people can be the victims of racism in this country, it is certainly not the view of the criminal courts that can’t.
There was clear evidence of racial motive in the attack on an asian student in the 19990s in Leeds involving a famous England football player who then went to Newcastle(who was aquitted) but the judge would not allow the jury to consider this and it was not reflected in the sentences given to those who were convicted, and it is clear that black and asian people are often convicted of racially motivated crimes of violence.
It was also clear in the Oldham riot trials that the white defendants got proportionately lower sentences than the asians, in spite of the white defendants being the perpetrators.
The problem is that I don’t think you are someone a rational discussion can take place with on these issues as you have already demonstrated with your contributions on ethnicity.
I suspect your agenda is thoroughly racist, if not outright BNP.
Comment by Armchair — 23 November, 2009 @ 6:49 pm
Well of course you think I am ‘racist’ as I dare to question the idiotic contention that anti-white racism doesn’t exist.
In fact I would go as far to say that considering that racism is a human condition it is racism if the most extreme form to suggest that non-white people cannot suffer from it.
The problem is not one of rational debate on my behalf, after all I have produced evidence for my contentions whereas you have produced none for yours, but rather of having the debate in the first place.
Just those two cases above show that anti-white racism is a reality and a sometimes incredibly violent one at that and one that is not taken seriously by the justice system.
Comment by Normal Bloke — 23 November, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
In answer to Armchairs question – Civil Partnerships are all but name Marriages. Every legal right and obligation bestowed by the state on Marriage is shared by Civil Partnerships. The difference was product tactics. The Government introduced it as separate from marriage as way of getting around opposition there would have been in the House of Lords to an open marriages to same sex parents. Now for some like Peter Tatchell see Civil Partnerships as second rate or a form of “sexual apartheid”, but like the notion of “heteorophobia” I think that just silly.
Now I am all for this straight couple to have a Civil Partnership if they prefer – although the difference is wholly symbolic. I think this however could be the first set to a more revolutionary situation with the state recognising more relationships, such as multi-partner relationships, non-sexual economically depended relations and sexual yet economically independent relationships, to name just three. Of course the baggage of ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ should differ, but the state should recognise and support all and every relationships that improves the mental wellbeing of it citizens. The idea that this can only be through coupledom like Barry suggests simply supports the notion of the nuclear family as universal.
With regard to the notion of whether largely discriminated minorities can discriminate themselves – well of course they can. Just because you’re oppressed or discriminated against does not make you nice. However anti-white racism is less common and certainly less institutionalised than anti-black racism. Indeed I would argue that anti-white racism is a reflection of anti-black racism which is still institutionalised in our society with minority ethnic communities largely seen as a social ‘problems’.
Similarly LGBT people can be bigoted to heterosexuals – but it has no real institutionalised form, and gangs of gay youth going around beating up “breeders” is unheard of. In my experience when it does happens it slips into either gender or racial line. The is a long tradition of gay male misogyny for example (just look at Tom of Finland Cartoons) , and as we have seen sometimes minority cultural or ethnic communities are presented as synonymous with homophobia.
Comment by Richard Farnos — 23 November, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
This is so bizarre. Civil unions in New Zealand have never had this kind of restriction. I have two straight couples as friends who are both civilly united because they don’t believe in marriage. Our former Prime Minister (who is apparently in a heterosexual relationship) has said that she would have gotten a civil union herself if they’d been available in 1981.
I’ve often thought that the whole “gay marriage” debate can be sidestepped by simply withdrawing legal recognition for ALL marriages, and civil partnerships for all consenting adult couples (or triples, I’m not sure on that one). It’s a simple case of “separation of church and state”.
Comment by Daphne — 23 November, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
Personally I would abolish marriage and replace it more egalitarian civil partnerships for whether everybody gay or straight.
Comment by paddy garcia — 23 November, 2009 @ 8:14 pm
What a ridiculous waste of time.
Comment by KrisS — 23 November, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
But Paddy what about my partners daughter who has just got engaged and is looking forward to her big day. Shall I tell her that marriage should be abolished because it is a partriatchal/capitalist institution which oppresses women? Lol. If you dont like marriage-dont get married!
Comment by Owen — 23 November, 2009 @ 8:19 pm
I’ve got to agree with KrisS here. Why don’t this couple just get married if they want to?
Or just live together without marriage if that suits them better?
I’m a huge admirer of Pete Tatchell and the enormous contribution he’s made to equality, but what’s he talking about with this “heterophobia”?
What choices or lifestyles are being denied to heterosexual couples?
Indeed, a ridiculous waste of time.
Comment by Karl Stewart — 23 November, 2009 @ 8:27 pm
@ Richard Farnos
“However anti-white racism is less common”
And what is your source for this?
“and certainly less institutionalised than anti-black racism.”
Not in Zimbabwe its not, for instance!
“Indeed I would argue that anti-white racism is a reflection of anti-black racism”
So whites are responsible for all racism too now!
Comment by Normal Bloke — 23 November, 2009 @ 10:01 pm
When the civil partnership legislation was first introduced, I distinctly remember hearing that they were open so same-sex couples - the example quoted was that a vicar and his elderly housekeeper could get a partnership.
In fact, this formed part the Government’s argument that the civil partnership legislation wasn’t only for gay people.
In a similar vein, two sisters were refused a civil partnership. They lived together and shared all their money, so thought that it would be a convenient legal arrangement. But relatives can’t enter into civil partnerships either.
There doesn’t seem to me to be any compelling case to prevent any two (or more maybe…) adults entering into civil arrangements over the sharing of property and legal rights if they want to.
Comment by unseen — 24 November, 2009 @ 12:02 am
Abolition of marriage is not an answer: it is repressive against those who want to get married. What we should oppose is giving married people a different status in society from those who are not married. The same goes for civil partnerships. I agree with Daphne (#9) on these points, though I think recognition of hetero civil partnerships would help in weakening the legal force of marriage, so I support the demand for that. Marriage is mainly to do with property, wills and rights with regard to children - all ultimately designed to perpetuate class relations through the generations.
As the religious “rationale” for marriage has faded - at least in the ostensibly “christian” community in Britain, weddings have evolved into massive, consumerist and sometimes eccentric parties. A marxist analysis of this phenomenon would be interesting.
Comment by PhilW — 24 November, 2009 @ 9:55 pm
Barry kade is right that the idea of Heterophobia is a bit daft, but of course Hetro couples (like my partner and me) should have the right to take up civil partnership and its great Peter Tatchell is championing it(we may wish to take it up ourselves!)
Don’t feed the BNP trolls!
Comment by ECOLEFTY — 25 November, 2009 @ 10:14 am
This couple are wasting their time and money. Nobody’s human rights are being breached, because there is no human right to a civil partnership. Article 12 is “Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right”.
In Wilkinson v Kitzinger (2005), the High Court considered that the status quo is compatible with the Human Rights Act.
I suspect there are very few heterosexuals who consider the current setup heterophobic. Perhaps we are all victims of homosexist false consciousness.
This is all a bit “we shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother!”
Comment by Jay — 26 November, 2009 @ 2:04 pm