Comments on: Austria gets civil partnerships

By: TomTallis

TomTallis — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:47:04 +0000

I’m an American citizen legally married to my Austrian same-sex partner. Oddly enough, I can get full Austrian citizenship as the spouse of an Austrian citizen. It involves jumping through quite a few hoops, but it is available. If we were to live in our apartment in Vienna, we would be recognized as legally married in Austria.

I really appreciate this blog and read it every day. Thanks for the great work!

By: occono

occono — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:42:34 +0000

The Bill is supposed to come into effect next year, IIRC, but “published” in our laws doesn’t mean ratified, really. It could still be undone, it has to still go through another vote….maybe TRiG understands it better then I, I’m also Irish but politically apathetic…

By: Jutta Zalud

Jutta Zalud — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:20:27 +0000

The Austrian state does not *disallow* any church wedding, but only a civil marriage (usually at the townhall) or (in the future) a registration of partnerschip will entail any legal consquences. It’s like in France: once you have obtained your civil marriage you can go to the priest of your choice and have a church wedding.

There is no “state religion” in Austria, but the Roman Catholic church is still very important and influential (ca 75%). In fact, when we say “the church”, we mean RC. There is a protestant minority (5%), other denominations are even much smaller. So, it won’t be easy to find a priest or preacher to celebrate a same-sex wedding in the near future in Austria.

The dispute about the building and the ceremony ist mostly political and about symbols: of course it would be obvious to have the same civil-servants who are in charge of marriages also have perform registrations of partnerships, because they know how to do the job. But the conservative People’s Party just wanted to make registered partnerships distinct from marriage. The location is one of those (symbolic) disctinctions. The name is another one. A registered partner will have to apply for a name-change if he or she wants to have the partner’s last name and the last name will be called just that (“Nachname”) instead of “family name” (“Familenname”) … which means that a lot of official papers will have to be redesigned, so at least the paper producing and printing companies will have a benefit ;o)

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:45:35 +0000

TRiG

I know that a bill for Civil Partnership has been published in Ireland and was expected to become law before year’s end.

Has there been any progress or any change in expectation?

By: Timothy (TRiG)

Timothy (TRiG) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:04:52 +0000

In the UK, a registry office wedding is not allowed to have any religious content. You couldn’t even play a Bach mass.

And a civil partnership can be held only in a registry office, not elsewhere.

Therefore, all civil partnerships have to be non-religious ceremonies.

Awkward. And silly.

***

Personally, I prefer the French method of marriages: all weddings are non-religious and are held in the town hall. It is customary, but by no means necessary, to then head down the road to the church and have the priest bless your marriage. I think this allows for a clearer demarcation in people’s minds of the multiple different parts of a marriage. Oddly, France doesn’t yet have marriage equality, and its civil partnerships are not nearly as strong as those in the UK.

And here in Ireland we have nothing, yet. And Brian Cowen isn’t returning my letters. (He’s the Taoiseach, and also my TD.)

TRiG.

By: Mel

Mel — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:38:57 +0000

The big difference is that most European countries have official state religions (Catholic in Austria, I believe). That said, most of them also seem to do a better job than the US at keeping religious and secular life separated. And I’m not entirely certain they’d object if a recognized sect without official state affiliation chose to celebrate same-sex unions.