The Gay Megathread (see mod note on post #2212)

JimiTime wrote: »

Ok.



Because they go to college? Have a good job? Have a relationship? Talk to psychologists who think, 'They seem fine to me'?

Guess what? My fatherless nephew would likely tick all those boxes. We cannot measure the impact like some science experiment. Its EVEN HARDER given the tiny number and various makeups of 'alternative families' there are. We cannot raise a child with a nuclear family, then raise it again with a same sex one and see what the difference is. In fact, if we take children from their parents forcibly, and give them to other adoptive parents to raise, it would probably come up with similar results: Good job, education, socially good etc. The fact is, people don't really care about these social studies until it is lending weight to the position they already hold. Men and women are different hormonally, biologically, emotionally. How they react to a variety of things is different, how they deal with loss, trauma. How they rationalise, problem solve, play, express themselves. The list goes on and on, and no book should need reading to know it!! It SHOULD go without saying that further on from having a loving family unit, it is best for a child to have the wholeness of the gender spectrum shining on their lives. Providing positive role models, and included in this, gender-centric role models giving them the practical implicit experience for understanding the idiosyncrasies of the sexes. Sure, a single mother/father can raise a child, and they will be a normal, functioning member of society. Great Job, good education, and be socially functioning. However, you really cannot measure what they COULD have had. All I can do is ask people to have some consideration for the ones who have no voice in this. Those who DON'T get the choice. Yes, they'll grow up knowing no different, and will likely think, 'I'm grand' in not knowing any different. However, as a society, we will have consigned children to these un-natural (in a gender sense) family make-ups when there would have been the alternative to give them the natural gender-centric family they would have enjoyed if their natural parents could have raised them. No doubt, children will continue to be denied parents for multitudes of reasons. However, when the circumstance so arises that a child for whatever reason is up for adoption, society has an opportunity to try give them the best they can, rather than pander to emotional blackmailing, agenda bombardment, and people pretending that its actually scientific.
I still believe, that but for divine intervention, this argument is lost. The brainwashing through media implicitly through entertainment, and explicitly through the vilification and shouting down of any dissenting voice is winning the day. The fact there is such conformism on this rather HUGE matter that changes our understanding of parentage and the needs of children should in itself ring alarm bells. Sure, people will cite studies as if that somehow is a QED, but the fact is that most people will not have read them, nor questioned them, nor even cared that they exist if the truth be told. They are just glad that there is something there with the word 'science' in it that somebody who has letters after their name compiled that appears to back up their already held notions. Nobody cares about the 'evidence'. They care about their agenda's, which is why they pass over their responsibility to think to googling, 'Studies to prove my position'. Ironically, its those of us who DON'T pass over our responsibility to think, who are made out to be the irrational ones. How arrogant of us to think that we can think, and see that the emperor has no clothes.

Ah Jimi, you are (thankfully) fighting a lost cause. Don't worry though the world won't end. Just like it didn't when contraception, divorce and married women going to work were legalised. You'll be fine when gay marriage and abortion are legal too. Your rights won't be affected.

I think the idea that cohabiting couples, whatever sex should be treated the same as married couples is wrong. People have the right to be not married just as they have (or should have ) the right to be married. Marriage should never be by default or a consequence of habit. It should be by consent and choice.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Actually, I think this is not correct, with respect to cohabiting couples.

In New Zealand, on the breakdown of a relationship, cohabiting couples (who have spent a certain minimum time together, or who have had children together) have their affairs sorted out under the same rules as apply to married couples. But that is true in Ireland also.

But, while the cohabitation relationship is continuing, it doesn’t enjoy anything like the status of a marriage. There are many differences of treatment. For example, spouses have protected rights of inheritance which cohabitants do not have. Cohabiting couples cannot jointly adopt a child, whereas spouses can. (For that matter, civil partners cannot jointly adopt a child in New Zealand, so they are not on all fours with married couples either). There’s a long list of these differences of treatment and, if you compiled such lists for both Ireland and New Zealand, they wouldn’t be identical, but they’d have a good deal in common.

In short, as regards marriage, civil partnership and cohabitation, Irish and NZ law are mostly pretty similar.

But there are some significant differences. And I think the big differences are:

(a) in NZ, both opposite-sex and same-sex couples can form a civil partnership, whereas in Ireland only same-sex couples can; and

(b) in NZ, same-sex and (soon!) opposite-sex couples can both marry, whereas in Ireland only opposite-sex couples can (yet!).

In NZ there’s a procedure by which civil partners can convert their relationship to a marriage by a simple re-registration (no ceremony required), and a married couple can convert to civil partnership. This isn’t possible in Ireland, because an opposite-sex couple can’t form a civil parthership, and a same-sex couple can’t marry.

www.justice.govt.nz/courts/.../property

http://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/family-court/what-family-court-does/paternity

http://www.lawworksnz.com/resources/Taking%20the%20Law%20into%20your%20own%20Hands%20-%20Jul%2005.pdf


Not the same at all. Read through the above and you will find significant differences.

Several stand out examples among many. In the event of death cohabiting (same or opposite sex) couples who have been together 3 years or more have the same automatic rights of inheritance as married couples. There is no difference in taxation as a couple or inheritance tax for 'co habiting couples'. Fathers do not have to be married to the mother to automatically be their child's legal guardian, so long as they live or lived with the mother it is automatic.

Quite different from the situation here where my partner, my sons biological father is not considered his legal guardian as we are not married. My mother in NZ would be considered his legal next of kin if I were to die, over his biological father. I have every right to take my child to the airport and board the next plane permanently to NZ without advising his father (although ironically once I landed he could have me arrested for kidnapping under NZ law, but by Irish law it is just fine). We had to sign a document with our lawyer when we purchased our house to say that it is 'not the family home'. If I don't work my partner can't claim my tax credits and if one of us dies everything is willed to the other but would be subject to inheritance tax. All because a marriage official hasn't cast a magic spell over us.

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Not the same at all. Read through the above and you will find significant differences . . .

Thanks for the fuller information. Consider my ignorance somewhat reduced! (Though not as reduced as it might be. Your first link seems to be broken.)

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Quite different from the situation here where my partner, my sons biological father is not considered his legal guardian as we are not married . . . . My mother in NZ would be considered his legal next of kin if I were to die, over his All because a marriage official hasn't cast a magic spell over us.

It’s not because “a marriage official hasn't cast a magic spell over us”. For better or for worse, you’re in the situation you’re in because you have chosen not to marry. Any “magic spell” that gets cast her can be cast by the two of you, and only by the two of you. The state will accept whatever decision you make in this regard.

Basically, there’s a tension here between two opposing principles.
On the one hand, you can see marriage as a choice for the couple concerned. People can choose to keep their intimate relationships entirely private, or to seek public recognition, acceptance and support for them. The first group of people will choose not to marry; the second will choose to marry (or form a civil partnership/civil union, if that’s an option). And if you see marriage as a choice, then you should respect people’s choices, and couples who choose not to marry should not be treated as if they had married.

On the other hand, you can see a conjugal relationship as an important social reality which has consequences that ought to be recognised regardless of whether recognition is sought. On this view, if a couple form a conjugal partnership, then society at large has both a right and a duty to recognise and accept that, and all kinds of legal, administrative and social consequences flow. It doesn’t matter whether the couple want this, or even if they actively do not want it; it’s the factual reality of the conjugal partnership that matters here, not the wishes of the couple. On this view, marriage-like treatment is a status assigned to you by law, a bit like citizenship by birth, say, or adult status. It arises out of the facts, not out of your wishes. If you don’t like it, tough.

Most countries have a slightly schizophrenic stance here, sometimes recognising a conjugal partnership only where the couple has sought this recognition (by marrying or forming a civil union, where that’s possible), and sometimes recognising it regardless of the couple’s wishes. For social welfare purposes, for example, a partnered couple are usually treated as a couple regardless of whether they are married. There’s a growing trend, on the breakdown of relationships, to treat a partnered couple under the same rules regardless of whether they have married. As regards inheritance, on the other hand, while some countries (including, I now learn, New Zealand) treat an unmarried couple as though they were married, others (including Ireland) do not.

You can draw up long lists relating to various areas of law and policy, and for each check off whether unmarried couples are treated in the same way as married couples or not - income tax, inheritance tax, adoption, paternity, guardianship, personal care decisions, rights to the home, rights to maintenance, immigration, acquiring citizenship, privilege against testifying . . . there’s dozens more. For most countries, you’ll check some boxes and not others.

Whether you think this is a good thing or not depends on your understanding of the relationship of the individual and society. If you take an individualist view, and reckon that people should determine their own destiny, then you’re likely to think they should have the right to choose their own relationship status, and if they choose not to marry that should be respected; the rest of us should not treat them as if they had married. But if you take a more communitarian view, emphasising that society is constituted by a network of relationships and that society therefore has an interest in recognising, and a duty to recognise, relationships, then you’ll be more comfortable with partnered status as something that is imposed upon you by the fact of your conjugal relationship, not something that arises out of your agreement. New Zealand (and, from your comments above, you) clearly incline to the latter view.

How does all this relate to the question of gay marriage? Well, the more married status is seen as something you choose, then the greater the apparent injustice of not allowing gay couples to choose it. On the other hand, if partnered status for legal and administrative purposes follows automatically from the very fact of being partnered, then gay conjugal couples will to a large extent already have the treatment that married opposite-sex couples get, and the significance of allowing them to marry formally becomes largely symbolic. (Which is not to say that it’s unimportant.) I presume, from what you say, that it’s already the case in NZ that gay couples are treated for most purposes in exactly the same way as married straight couples, which means that the leglisation allowing them to marry doesn’t have the same practical consquences as it would, say, in the US, or even in Ireland.

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

And unmarried couples can adopt in NZ, however only one of the partners can become the legal parent. Which is discriminatory and should be changed.

Well, it may be a nitpick, but if only one of the couple becomes the legal parent, then only one of them is adopting. What you describe here is exactly the situation that we have in Ireland.

50 years!! Ever the optimist Zombrex.

AFAIK in Ireland a civil partnership is just that; a partnership, anyone can form one and sex or relationship don't come into it. Apart from the fact that both must be single to enter one.

lazygal wrote: »

Only two men or two women can enter into a civil partnership in Ireland.

So an uncle and nephew or niece and aunt but not a sister and brother?
Hmmm so they lied when they said it would sort out all the inheritance issues where a relative cares for someone and then finds themselves in legal limbo when the care-ie dies!
Why am I not surprised. Too big an exchequer loss I guess.

lazygal wrote: »

There's a list of people whom its not permissible to marry or enter into a civil partnership with. You'll be apprised of this if and when you register intent.
Why am I not surprised some poster throw red herrings like carers being left out into a debate like this?

Anything but a red herring, turns out it was a smoke bomb. Designed to blind us to the real intent.
I campaigned against civil partnership, it struck me as a separate but equal solution when the obvious solution was marriage for anyone. One of the things we were told at the time was that civil partnership would solve the above mentioned cases, we didn't toss that smelly fish into the argument.

lazygal wrote: »

Only two men or two women can enter into a civil partnership in Ireland.

Also, there is the co-habiting couples under the same legislation who are heterosexual who will fall under this legislation depending on the term of co-habitation - which I don't really see a problem with?

What exactly is the major difference and major problem legally speaking between a gay couple entering into a 'civil partnership' and a heterosexual couple who enter into a marriage where obviously biological children may result?

28064212 wrote: »

http://www.marriagequality.ie/marriageaudit/full-list

Could you be more personally specific? Links are nice but kind of tiresome depending on whether there is any comment or no?

I'd like to know the problems - I have a gay brother in law who signed a civil partnership with his partner - I'm just wondering what he may be thinking that I haven't really considered, I'd like to know what I am missing?

I can understand inheritance. I don't really understand where this is special as to do with children and adoption? Could you elaborate?

lmaopml wrote: »

I can understand inheritance. I don't really understand where this is special as to do with children and adoption? Could you elaborate?

Civil partnership makes no provision for a gay couple that have children (by whatever means). The child will probably already have a legal relationship with one of the parents already, but the other parent is legally a complete stranger.

So even though that other parent will be just as involved in the upbringing of the child, they can make no decisions for the child. That could be for something as complex as medical treatment, or as simple as signing a permission slip for school outing. EDIT: Or even collect them from school in one case!

That becomes infinitely more complicated if something happens to the parent with the legal relationship. It would involve going to the courts to remedy the matter, and if someone makes an objection, it's not guaranteed the child would remain with the parent who helped raise them.

And something I hadn't considered until it was pointed out at the Convention last week, was that that works the other way. When the child grows up, they can't be involved in any legal decision for the "non-legal" parent, which comes into play as they get older and may need care, etc.

It's similar for adoption. Unmarried couples can't apply jointly, and any child placed in the care of an unmarried couple only has a legal relationship with whoever's name was on the application. Which brings us back to the points above.

lmaopml, you're right that is a legislation issue; marriage legislation. The bar on same sex marriage is a result of a single line in the Civil Registration Act. Removing that means gay couples can use the same marriage process as heterosexual couples, and also resolves the issues around gay couples being able to adopt jointly. It also means that that gay couples can then fit within the constitutional definition of family and avail of any rights or protections that affords. Amending the Civil Partnership Act, even to the point of being identical to marriage, doesn't allow that constitutional protection.

There will still need to be new legislation around guardianship, parentage, and family relationships, etc, but that's something needed anyway to address, for example, the rights of unmarried fathers or heterosexual couples who use 3rd party means to have children. The Minister for Justice is planning a Family Relationships & Children Bill that should address many of these issues.

The rights between a child and their biological parents are very important, but they're not really applicable here. We're talking about children for whom at least one biological parent isn't going to be around on a day to day basis, or maybe even not at all, either by circumstance or choice. And there can be no question about the upbringing of children raised by gay or lesbian couples, because the State has already decided on that issue. Children in Ireland have been adopted or fostered by gay or lesbian couples and will continue to be so.

At the end of the day, this is about equality. Chances are you'd agree that the relationship your brother in law has with his civil partner, is equal to the one you have with your spouse or partner. It's probably not the same, but equality isn't about being the same. It's about being treated the same way despite any differences. And having different legislation for gay & lesbian couples, especially if it gives exactly the same rights as marriage, isn't treating them the same way. That's the concept of "equal, but separate" which has never worked.