Commie Pervert Geek Girl, March 2005
Originally published in Express

The Justice and Electoral Committee has finally reported back on the Relationships bill, which should soon be going back to Parliament for its second and final readings. For some reason, this is not getting anywhere near the same attention as the Civil Union bill, even though this is the one that really matters.

Until the Relationships bill has passed, Civil Unions will be purely symbolic, not recognised as equivalent to marriage under any laws. This is perhaps worse than useless, as we already had the freedom to make symbolic public commitments in weddings or union ceremonies, and the symbolism of "we'll take your names down, but you can't call it marriage and we won't give you any rights" leaves much to be desired.

Fortunately, it seems almost certain that the bill will be passed. Well, mostly fortunately. This bill should be even more controversial than the Civil Unions bill; not only does it bestow actual rights on same sex couples who chose to make a commitment, it forces legal recognition upon "de facto" couples (of any genders) that have not asked for it. The bill as revised by the select committee is an improvement over the initial version, but still goes much too far.

The definition of a de facto relationship remains, naturally enough, ambiguous, and the same two people may be treated as in a de facto relationship in some situations but not in others. The people in question don't necessarily get a say in the matter, and it's safe to assume that the government's financial interests will be a major factor in any determinations. Though the number of laws which will recognise de facto couples has been cut back, serious privacy and freedom issues remain.

On a slightly sillier note, though depressing, the report is very concerned about "protecting" the language of marriage. They have insisted that the words "spouse", "husband", "wife", and "widow(er)" be reserved exclusively for married couples, even though a number of laws already use "spouse" in an inclusive sense. As well as being impractical (so what do you call the survivor of the death of a civil union partner?), this encourages the view of civil unions as second class relationships.

United Future committee member Murray Smith's minority report is particularly ironic. Having opposed the extension of the right to actually marry to same sex couples, he is now complaining that civil unions will be seen as "requiring a lesser standard of commitment than marriage". He helped to create the need for separate Civil Unions, and is now doing his best to ensure that they are given the very inferior status he claims to fear will be so detrimental to society.