Kipp, anyone (unless you are not mentally competent), gay or straight, has the right to make a will and make health directives. I did see a few lawyers (though since one of them was myself that one might not have been good tee hee!) and my will and health directives are done. When I was living with my husband before we married we had a cohabitation agreement. If you go to the Public Trustee they will write your will for free and you can go to a community legal centre and get free advice. There are even (shock, horror) lawyers especially offering estate planning especially for homosexual couples.

You say homosexual couples do not have security of tenure over their relationship. Tenure applies to land or employment not to relationships. As for security, plenty of married couples don’t have security in their relationships! I appreciate what I think you are saying, but since you’re not using terms correctly I can’t be sure. If what you want to say is, “I would like to be able to enter a Civil Union with my same sex partner and be treated legally the same as if we were a married couple” then I agree and think that you ought to be able to do so.

You say, “A Civil Union is about keeping third parties out of the relationship” - could you please provide an example? I thought a Civil Union was to acknowledge the committed relationship of two people for the rest of society and to gain equal welfare and taxation benefits as married or defacto heterosexual couples. So, impliedly, the State is becoming involved in the relationship.

As to why anyone should have lawyers in their lives all I can say is that lawyers are there because people are people, and it’s much easier to see one at the start of a relationship and pay a small amount than pay a lot at the end of a relationship because you didn’t do any planning for your joint assets.

Pedant wrote:

“You (Kipp) say, “A Civil Union is about keeping third parties out of the relationship” - could you please provide an example? I thought a Civil Union was to acknowledge the committed relationship of two people for the rest of society and to gain equal welfare and taxation benefits as married or defacto heterosexual couples. So, impliedly, the State is becoming involved in the relationship.”

There are other ways that the state is involved in relationships, both straight and gay. The classic example is the social security system, where a person’s live-in partner’s circumstances are also taken into account when working out levels of benefit that the state will pay in the situation of unemployment, illness and incapacity. Another area is that of ‘spousal support’, which whilst not often discussed, is where the better off partner in a relationship can required to pay support to the other person when a relationship breaks up. Another is sexually transmitted debt, where a partner goes guarantor or co-signs a loan agreement, only to be financially disadvantaged if the relationship breaks up.

I would welcome the gay community to involve themselves deeper in these issues.

Marriage, or civil union, should not just be about rights and benefits. It is about the responsibilities that often outlive the ‘love’ that brought the couple together. I have read here a lot about rights, but very little about responsibilities, or are these to be discarded in the new world of families?

This is not to argue against civil unions, but to suggest that people should realise that when they get married they should be prepared to give up a bit of themselves, and their individuality. If a person, straight or gay, wants to remain a complete individual with full choice of action in their lives then maybe they should remain single and just accept what companionship that they can. Marriage is about two people being wedded, or forming a union. Those words mean no longer being separate. Our society has so devalued the words ‘union’ and ‘marriage’ that it all becomes somewhat meaningless anyway.

Hamlet
Quote "Bosk, I don't know what your hang up is, I consistently aknowledge the right of gays to civil union, that is, that is not to have the religious part of society intrude on your beliefs and behaviour.

Why do you insist, apparently, on thrusting your interpretation of faith in the faces of those who want to feel differently to you about their own lives?"

Why do I insist on this? Because you have condemned homosexuality as a sin as well as agreeing that homosexuals have a right to have a civil union. Apparently asserting that homosexuals will burn for eternity is merely voicing an opinion while by disagreeing I am [according to you] "thrusting my interpretation in your face". Strange are the double standards.

Alan
Aparently heterosexuals have the privilege of marrying because they perfom a benefit for society. Well so do Homosexuals Grey. They pay taxes, serve in the police & the armed forces. Perhaps you meant that heterosexual relationships reproduce while homosexual relationships do not.

While this is demonstrably untrue I'd also like to point out that we allow infertile couples to marry despite the fact that they are not able to reproduce. Let's just be honest shall we Grey. You don't want homosexuals having the right [or privilege] of marriage because they are homosexuals, nothing more.

By the way. In almost every post you assert that homosexuals harm others. How? And what evidence can you produce? If you can't back up your statement perhaps you should just STOP making it.

Dear Reason... to make sure I answer your question "YES" I don't have a problem with anyone of any orientation determining such things.

This can surely be done with a 'will' ? or.. somekind of registered contract between the parties, which is purely a legal document.

Now..the other side. CULTURAL and SOCIAL IMPACT.

Do what you like behind closed doors... but is that where it all ends ? No jolly way !

If that was ALL homosexuals wanted, I can live with it, its their choice. But,

a) I do not want an openly homosexual couple living next door. (example, role model, influence on local cultural/spiritual atmosphere.)
b) I don't want my children educated to accept '2 mummies or 2 daddies'

c) I shudder at the thought of homosexual couples adopting children.

and.. its my democratic right to make a stand for this.

To answer Ena I think, there is no double standard. We don't TEACH that heterosexual molestation of small girls is an ok thing.

The point I'm making with "Incest,Bestiality, Paedophilia" is this....
There are people who will swear blind that THEY WERE BORN THAT WAY.
Get it ? So the point is "Being supposedly born with an abnormal sexual orientation" is NOT a reason to make it socially acceptable.

There are strong reasons to teach AGAINST such behavior and to underline the fact that it is NOT 'normal' and is not acceptable in the community.

This therefore relegates such behavior to opportunities as they present themselves, but not in mainstream social life.

Get rid of the rhetoric about 'hate' and 'Hate based on the Bible'

Its about having social standards, knowing what you believe, and making political and social and cultural decisions accordingly. I don't go around looking for the next gay to bash.

Do you HATE heterosexuals ? do you HATE people who disagree with homosexual behavior ? no ? ok.. then STOP attributing 'hate' to them on the issues they disagree with you over.
Otherwise it is just cheap political propoganda.

There are posters here who find it hard to imagine that there is any real discrimination against homosexual partnerships. in a way, that is good to hear, because they are making a rather sweet - if naive - assumption that we live in a fair society. But evidence would indicate that same sex couples are not exaggerating or imagining the deep seated discrimination against them.
Recently there was a story about a long term same sex couple, over 30 years from memory. One of the partners was an Australian returned serviceman. His partner was a younger Japanese man. Because he was Japanese and had a name that the bureaucrats could not immediatelt identify as male, on the death of his partner, he was granted a war widows pension. Once they discovered he was a male life partner, rather than a female - he didn't have to be a wife, you understand, de facto was fine, as long as female - his pension was removed.
This story is shocking, deeply shocking. This returned serviceman risked his life just as fundamentally as any heterosexual, he faced death and disruption in just the same way. Yet he was not permitted to protect and provide for his life partner in the way that his colleagues were. Same risk, differential reward. This is wrong. Either we reward homosexuals in the same way as heterosexuals or we allow them to opt out of national service, war and, perhaps, paying the same rates of tax. We can't have it both ways, it seems to me. If your blood is good enough to be shed, your money good enough to be taxed and contributed, then your rewards ought to be as good too.

lol@BOAZ, you regularly watch "South Park" programs? Mate, that smut is banned from my house as I have children.

Let us examine YOUR morals. What other smut, sleaze, and dare I say, pornography do you have a habbit in endulging in? re- your quote: "The Gay lobby tries to differentiate itself from NAMLBA but they cannot. For a more entertaining coverage of the issue, refer the relevant episode of SouthPark."

It appears you know more about South Park than anyone else posting on this page. You also appear to know more about NAMBLA than most others on this page. Please explain!

Do you get your NAMBLA videos from the same place that you get your South Park videos from? Don't answer, we really don't want to know.

BOAZ obsessively goes back to: "Unfortunately, EVERY ARGUMENT 'for' Homosexual behavior and 'against' the Biblical condemnation is ALSO an argument for incest, bestiality and paedophilia."

Is that on the other pornography tape you have locked up in the closet behind South Park? None of this criminal reference is relevant to gay people. Incest, bestiality and paedophilia may be YOUR kinky way, but they are NOT the kinky way of an entire minority group. You roll out this tired old nag time and time again like Gollum.

Someone hatefully scoffed that being born gay is like being born a paedophile, that is, a criminal. This chestnut keeps returning relentlessly: criminalising homosexuality by association. Do you really want them criminalised in the concentration camps like the NAZIs did again? Criminal association to gay people by unfair defamatory connotation is considered a hate crime in some European countries. Who is the criminal?

Gay guys who want a civil union by a celebrant, not in a Church (so last century darl.): "Kimmy" let me just say one thing. I make wedding cakes to die for. Not all straight guys are just self righteous gas-baggers from Fountain Gate. Some of us are useful to civilization.