Civitas Blog

As the legislation stands, civil partnership revolves around the legal recognition of financial, property and next-of-kin rights. The arrangement is predominantly a consensual safety-net arrangement between two adults. Whilst legislation will enable partners to assume parental responsibility for the other partner’s biological children, it does not give gay couples greater adoption rights than they have now.

The legal recognition of same-sex relationships is being construed by some, as the end of the traditional, heterosexual, nuclear family and the beginning of seamless diversity. This is a crude analysis. If there is anything truly transformative about the Civil Partnerships Act - and projections suggest that take-up will be relatively low - it lies in a new willingness on the part of the government to acknowledge the benefits of stability and commitment. This comes as a surprise in light of the government’s reluctance to endorse marriage. Certainly, the promotion of marriage was not what the legislation aimed to do. On the contrary, the introduction of civil partnerships symbolised the ultimate PC move – marriage regarded very much at odds with this.

There is a slim chance that this new legislation may produce an interesting side effect: a political climate in which New Labour feels it legitimate to support heterosexual marriage. The government’s aim in legislating for the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships was driven by an agenda for a) rights equality between heterosexuals and homosexuals b) partnership stability. The message conveyed, is that a legally recognised partnership is something worth privileging by the state. The Civil Partnerships Act, therefore, demonstrates that the government is in fact, contrary to rhetoric, willing to favour some relationships over others.

So perhaps the Civil Partnerships Act will enable the government to abandon its ‘diversity embracing’ agenda without feeling politically incorrect, allowing it to actively invest in stable, legally recognised, relationships.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if a purported threat to traditional matrimony in fact proved to be its political saviour?