Civil Partnership Bells?

Rony and I share respectful friendship based on mutual admiration. Ever since I’ve been out-posted to a bank in London’s financial district, the City, we’ve made a conscious effort to meet up for lunch once every month or so and catch up about all that life has thrown at us.

With my return 3 miles east to the Canary Wharf imminent, we decided to have one last City lunch yesterday. As I’ve been attempting to fast for Ramadan, it was really Rony who was lunching, with me doing more than my usual share of talking.

Our conversations are usually very general. We do not know each other that well, after all, having met through mutual friends and found common ground through the industry we work in. So I was very surprised when Rony reached into his suit pocket and produced an invitation to his wedding. Rony and Vladimir have been together for many years, and I was ecstatic that they were finally tying the knot. In my profuse congratulations I noticed that Rony was visibly nervous about the whole ordeal.

After he’d eaten, we decided to take a short walk through the Royal Exchange. He was in charge of buying the wedding rings, after all, so we started our trek at Cartier. An older, German lady stood behind the impeccable counter and eyed us inquisitively as we walked in. We were shown a rather limited selection of male wedding bands, but Rony decided there was one he wanted to try on. As he slipped the gleaming titanium onto his ring finger, I could see his eyes examine his hand with confusion, almost bewilderment.

“That looks wonderful,” she exclaimed (with the amount of exclamation one would expect from an older German lady).

Rony looked at me, still confused, and said in Arabic, “It looks a little strange, doesn’t it?”

I looked at the lady and quickly said, “Maybe something a little more matte?” Looking at Rony I could see the most endearing look on his face. A little bit of disbelief, a lot of excitement, and just a hint of lovesickness.

“The shine will wear off within a few weeks,” Frau Boring stated, “but perhaps you can return with the young lady and get her opinion as well?”

Rony looked at her, looked down again and muttered “Yes” under his breath. I suppose in his position I wouldn’t have bothered correcting the woman, but I was amazed that at this day an age in central London people are still confident in making the assumption that a man walking in to buy his wedding band would be eloping with a ‘young lady’. My Peter Tatchell moment aside, Rony had clearly lost interest in Cartier and we walked across the atrium to Tiffany’s.

The selection at Tiffany’s was wider, and the more Rony tried on rings, the more at ease he seemed with the idea of a ring. Again, the sales lady made the assumption that a ‘young lady’ would be involved, but after the third ring Rony politely stated: “Actually, it’s a civil partnership, so I will definitely bring him along tomorrow around 4.30 to see which one he prefers as well.”

The sales lady, this time American, repeated her congratulations and invited him and his partner to a private champagne shopping afternoon so that they could spend as much time deciding as they’d like. But as she rambled on I was surprised at how offended I was at the term ‘civil-partnership’.

Yes, in England gay ‘marriage’ is not technically marriage but a civil-partnership. Though most people have done away with the distinction on a social level, legally and semantically the difference remains. Sure, equal rights are afforded under both marriage and civil-partnership, and civil-partnership is open to straight couples as much as it is to gay ones, but I felt that in some way we were still being separated. And as we all know, separate is not equal.

But what defines marriage? Spain, Holland, Canada and Argentina are just some of the countries that have removed the barrier to marriage between members of the same sex, but on a practical level, what does this mean? Marriage is a term as much laden with religious stigma as it is with social expectations. So is that why Rony had to demote his big day to a ‘civil-partnership’? Is marriage an elevation of any sort?

This point has been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum in far too many fora, and I’m not about to delve into it on this semi-serious online rag of mine. But on reflection I feel like I should give my 2 cents worth – why is ‘marriage’ propped up and supported by secular governments? It seems absurd that a mainly religious ceremony and religious contract (even though for the most part people leave God out of it) holds so much weight in everything from how much tax you pay to who has the right to sign your mortgage documents.

To all the glorious crazies on Capitol Hill and in San Francisco, to Boris Johnson who stood up at Gay Pride London and demanded that same-sex couples be allowed to marry – you’re missing the point! What should actually be taking place, what we should be fighting for, is a demotion of ‘marriage’ as an institution recognized by the law. The partnership status of a citizen under a secular government should only be considered in light of any civil union. If Joe and Jane want to have a big church wedding, let them and god bless, but in no way should that have any legal value or weight. Their agreement should be sealed in a civil partnership, and it is purely that civil agreement that should allow them next of kin rights, tax allowances, and healthcare benefits. In theory, the United States’ elusive separation of church and state should have cooked this one up a while ago. But they can’t even get the word “God” off their money.