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Partnership Registrations

  
 
Shortfatdyke
15:04 / 29.09.02
If you didn't know, London Mayor Ken Livingstone created a partnership registration, mainly for same sex couples, but also for female/male couples who didn't want a wedding as such, so that their relationships could be officially acknowledged and registered. It doesn't give these couples legal rights in the same way that het married couples have, but it's hoped that it will be a good first step along the way. Not only that, but the ceremony takes place in the wonderful spanking new City Hall - the strangely shaped glass building opposite the Tower of London.

I went to one yesterday and I've just heard about something that happened at the reception and the more I think about it, the more angry I'm getting. I went along with my (lesbian) landlady and first of all, we were both struck by the fact that apart from the happy couple, us, and the bloke doing the ceremony, there was only one other dyke there. Nearly everyone else was a het couple, many with children. I was surprised, but it was okay - if they were seeing the relationship as the real deal and taking the ceremony seriously, then that was a good thing.

The ceremony itself was actually really nice. Very personal, made me sniffly etc. All well and good. Later on, I went back to the couple's flat and the atmosphere seemed to immediately descend into the most awful kind of het wedding reception. I felt terribly out of place. It was a queer commitment ceremony and there were hardly any queers there. Then everything started centreing around the children, and I witnessed the depressing sight of this woman's young son being deliberately given twice as much food as her daughter. Intelligent people are still doing this shit!

Anyway, my landlady told me that after I left, an Indian woman who'd been at the ceremony and who'd gone on the march had come back. She said she'd been marching with the Women In Black and was wearing a 'Women Against War' badge. And a neighbour of the happy couple got really angry - he sneered, "Don't start all that!" and cited Margaret Thatcher as the reason why no woman should ever talk about men being warmongers. My landlady had a go at him but no one else spoke up. She shuddered to think what would have happened if I'd been there.

The point is: I find it ironic that someone who is okay with witnessing two dykes having their partnership registered should get into such a tiz about feminism. Maybe it's not ironic, maybe he was okay about it because, to him, the ceremony meant they were assimilating nicely. Even though the vows and stuff were totally based on equality and respect - none of this gift wrapping of the bride for the father to present to the husband.

And this is wrong, but I'm still angry and I'll cool off in a while and think more clearly, but it's put me off the whole partnership registration thing. I'm sure I'm just being bloody-minded, because I don't think it's apeing het marriage at all, and I think it's great that straight couples can do it as well, but having someone be okay with it and yet still be such an ignorant tosser is making me wonder whether we should be doing this kind of thing at all.

Is anyone considering having their partnership registered? Has anyone been to one? What do you think? Talk some sense into me!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:43 / 29.09.02
You're letting some stupid, arrogant and ignorant man get you in to a state and the first thing you should do is, well, stop. So he attacked feminism, very few people attacked him back, a lot of the people in that room probably rolled their eyes as soon as he opened his mouth thinking 'there he goes again, wish he'd shut up, why do I put up with him?' Maybe he was a family member or the husband of someone close. This is just one of those events where absolutely everyone gets invited.

Now I have two reactions to what you've said in this post that you're probably going to hate but I'll say them anyway:

why does the gay community have to be so internal? Straight people need constant exposure to anyone who isn't straight. It's the same theory as lets bring children up in mixed race/class communities so they learn to love everyone. What's the problem with a lesbian partnership registration having a majority of heterosexual guests? Even the freak-man might get a bit of fucking maturity from witnessing a non-wedding type wedding.

As for having doubts about the whole idea of partnership registration. Are you insane? It's a fantastic idea, things like this are positive, -apart from shoving the whole idea of homosexuality in people's faces and making them accept it (and no this shouldn't have to happen but it still does)- it is not their occasion. No one should be denied the simple pleasure of a wedding (and they should be called weddings too), no one should be sectioned off, it should be perfectly plausible for weddings to exist for everyone without marriage actually taking place. Lets bring the fun in, I like weddings, if I end up with a woman than I want to have one and no one is going to stop me.
 
 
Cubby
15:50 / 29.09.02
Yeah, but he's an asshole.

I think that the most important thing to remember is that no matter where he would have been that afternoon he would have been just as much of an asshole. The inherent danger of a historically marginallized group gaining ground has always been that their progress will be misunderstood and misinterprited by the assholes of the world. Unfortunatly they always seem to have a majority. I'm sure this man will interpret the ceremony in the most disempowering way possible. And many like him. But, does this really detract from the power of this act, and its importance as a first step towards equallity. I just think that would be giving the assholes of the world too much credit.
 
 
w1rebaby
16:11 / 29.09.02
I was at a wedding where the bride, from a white East End family, was marrying a black guy, and her father decided to make some "hilarious" references in his speech to him as Sammy Davis Junior. How everyone laughed.

Yeah, it's ironic that someone like that would come to the wedding (though, technically, I suppose you could be fine with lesbianism but still anti-feminist) but it sounds to me like "random arsehole wedding guest syndrome". I wouldn't let it put you off the concept. If anything, it indicates a greater level of correspondence between partnership registration and old-style weddings.

It would be preferable, of course, if people in straight marriages didn't feel that they had to invite every arsehole vaguely related to them, rather than dykes feeling that they did. Move to the highest common denominator rather than the lowest.
 
 
Sauron
16:14 / 29.09.02
Sounds like an arse.

But I`d prefer a world where people make flippant, facetious, probably attention seeking comments, but are willing to accept same sex relationships.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:29 / 29.09.02
I love weddings, and I'm all for the partnership registration thing-- it's a long way from the kind of legal recognition that should be available to all, but it's a jolly good start. Latitudes of attitudes and so forth.

I'm less happy with the idea that, y'know, "this couple over here have a proper relationship because they got married/registered, but this couple over here don't, because they didn't have ceremony." I'd also like to see society as a whole moving away from the idea that there's only one good model for a relationship and that model is Ken & Barbie. What about other non-typical domestic arrangements, such as polygamy? Shouldn't they get some confetti chucked their way?

As to Stroppy Bloke: well, he's an arsehole, but there's one like him at every reception. Sadly, embracing feminism isn't a prerequisite for accepting a lesbian relationship. It may well be that Stroppy Bloke felt intensely threatened by the whole business ("Uh-oh. Dykes getting hitched, Women In Black, feminists... Mayday! Mayday! Circuits overloading!") and that's what brought on his little rant. (Personally I'm not convinced that men are intrinsically more warlike than women, but that's a whole 'nother thread.)
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:33 / 29.09.02
Surely, in an ideal world the sexuality of the people attending a queer partnership ceremony would have little to do with the sexuality of the happy couple? Its a little odd, perhaps, but one could look at it positively.

As for the obnoxious bloke, I agree with fridge that weddings often attract random assholes. Now I wasn't there, so I can't really comment on the particular event, but is voicing dissent against the concept of women against war really anti-feminist? There are lots of ways it could be, I know, but one might not be comfortable with the assignment of "warmongering" traits based on gender lines. Here the Maggie Thatcher comment is often raised, but one could turn it on its head. Since men have for so long been in a privileged position, there is also a historical dominance of positive male achievements. But I think that few would argue that this was due to a gender trait. Additionally, one might argue that it is ultimately divisive to protest an issue that affects us all in a factional way.

But if he was an asshole, then he was an asshole. You can't really expect queer ceremonies to be free of the kind of shit that happens in het ceremonies, I suppose.
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:34 / 29.09.02
but that's a whole 'nother thread

I probably shouldn't have touched it. Ah well.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
17:15 / 29.09.02
Janina: if you'd actually bothered to read my post you'd see it answered just about every point you made. So have another look and then you can take back a lot of the assumptions you've made and get the hell off your high horse.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:02 / 29.09.02
I wasn't on a high horse SFD. I was just answering what you were saying, yeah reading back you did answer a lot of what I said but it's difficult to know exactly what people mean when they write it. I misinterpreted that's all... I think you've got what I meant wrong as well, probably I sounded patronising or something, I don't know. I just feel sorry for the guy, so he's a fool, forget it... he won't change his mind, some people are just really not worth getting pissed off about and someone who gets feminism that wrong really really isn't worth it.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:05 / 29.09.02
I don't feel sorry for him at all. I think he is probably a prick. However, I think that to become disenchanted with the entire concept of partnership registration, whereby gay couples have an opportunity to be recognised in the eyes of the law for the first time, because of the behaviour of one person after a specific partnership registration, is a category error.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:07 / 29.09.02
Plus, of course, this is a report from somebody else. And this was the couple's neighbour, that is somebody they know through geography rather than political sympathy, and....well, and so on, kind of thing.
 
 
Sauron
18:12 / 29.09.02


I see three issues:

Is partnership registration a step in the right direction?

Obviously. Terrible name though.

Why did the amount of straight friends disturb SFD?

I can`t answer this.

Was the Arse an arse?

Obviously, not even worth discussing.

Apologies if this sounds flippant, but we are dancing on a pin head here. There is certainly no substance in even meriting the man`s comments with comments of our own. As someone says, a wedding is not complete without this sort of rant, which was inane, but for the most part, harmless.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:14 / 29.09.02
*slaps her forehead with her hand* I'm amazing today aren't I? Read your bloody post three times before replying and still forgot he was the neighbour and it takes Haus to fucking point it out. I'm hanging my head in shame.

Still feel sorry for him though. Mind you I do live in Hertfordshire and I am surrounded by people like that all the time and I do have to keep myself sane somehow.
 
 
Jack Sprat
21:10 / 29.09.02
SFD, we have partner registration in my city, too. Have for at least 10 years, although nobody uses it any more. It's a bloody waste of time and an insult to queers. Not that I have an opinion!

Yes, I registered with my then-wife when it was first enacted. We got a nondescript piece of paper that did not give us anything we needed but did cost $25. It didn't make it possible for me to legally make decisions for my wife when she was incapacitated or for me to get escorted into the emergency room when she was there. It didn't make it possible for me to inherit our common property if my ex-wife died. It wouldn't have given us joint custody of our children if we had any, and if she were the biological parent and she died, I wouldn't have been considered the next of kin to our own kids. It was a pathetic crumb thrown to a hungry mob.

Now here's my theory about the arse. Why shouldn't he support such a sham, second-class substitute for legal marriage for queers who, as we know, are sham, second-class subsitutes for real heterosexual couples with lives together, families who have legal and medical needs as a family? Heck, asswipes like that should dance in the frickin streets if we queers get ourselves all excited and grateful over, well, nothing in a semi-pretty package.

As for my "registration," I think I recycled it with some pizza-stained newspaper years and years ago, while I was still "married" to my ex-wife and expected to be so for life. Should have spent the $25 on some CDs or something else relatively useful.

Opinionated queer love,
Lydia aka Jack
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:22 / 29.09.02
Is it worth my pointing out that het marriage isn't some marmoreal and timeless one-size-fits-all deal even in the West, and that until relatively recently only the rich (that is, those with some inheritance to protect) got wed, and that serial monogamy was kinda the mode until a couple of centuries back, and... oh, forget it. I'm preaching to the choir.
 
 
Margin Walker
05:05 / 30.09.02
Hmm, I wonder when they'll allow LLC registrations in places like Utah....
 
  
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