Editorial: Civil Union Bill should be passed

Marriage is one of those traditional states that is forever said to be out of fashion but somehow never fades away. It is unlikely to suffer much if the Civil Union Bill tabled in Parliament yesterday is eventually passed. A great many dire predictions may be heard before MPs come to a final vote but, as usual, social behaviour would be changed little by the law. The bill is the Government's answer to the cry heard from homosexual communities throughout the world for social recognition of their committed love. Civil union offers them all the legal rights and obligations of legally married couples but not, perhaps, the full recognition they have been seeking. Marriage will remain a state that only heterosexual couples can enter.

Whether that exclusion matters might depend on the response of heterosexuals. If in large enough numbers they decide a civil union is an ample statement of their commitment, homosexuals will hardly care that their relationships cannot have the status of matrimony. If, however, marriage retains its sanctity and glamour for the vast majority of people, gays will not have gained the equality they seek.

Certainly they will have equality in every practical legal sense. Companion legislation, the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, will remove all legal distinctions by amending more than 100 laws concerned with everything from commerce to social welfare. Some of those amendments will work to the advantage of gays in settled relationships, others will not. They will, for example, have to settle for the equivalent of the married rate of state superannuation rather than being able to combine two single benefits.

But non-discrimination is only part of the battle. Gay people want society to recognise their commitments as no less valid and sacred than marriage. That is a recognition the Christian churches are still reluctant to extend, and the Government has taken some care not to offend the religious view. Those who believe that marriage is a divine blessing intended primarily for the creation and nurturing of children should not object to a different form of recognition for relationships that cannot produce children.

Civil unions will be available also to heterosexual couples who, for whatever reason, do not want to formalise their relationship as a marriage. Civil unions will be a step beyond de facto relationships, which now also carry marital property rights in law if the couple have lived together for three years. Civil unions sound more akin to registry office weddings and may indeed become the more common option for couples who do not want to make their vows in a church.

Those who value the spiritual meaning of marriage could welcome the likelihood that non-religious commitments will have the option of civil unions, giving marriage an extra distinction. Church weddings appeal to far more people than attend a church regularly or consider themselves religious. The marital commitment is something more than the legal contracts that establish partnerships for other purposes. Marriage is a statement of spiritual quality and for many people it is, perhaps, the only statement of their lives that they want to make in a church.

Homosexual partners are no different in that sense. Some will be content with a civil statement, others will wish for a more spiritually satisfying declaration. In time they may have that right. For the moment they are offered legal equality and a status that will also be the choice of many heterosexuals.

Heterosexuals in civil unions will consider themselves married, call themselves married and probably will be described as married in the media and elsewhere. Homosexuals in civil unions will not be in a position to describe themselves so. To that extent the bill is discriminatory but it is probably as far as society is yet prepared to go. It should be passed.