Things are looking up in Austria, where politicians are drafting a gay marriage law.
In an attempt to end years of political dispute Austria’s Social Democrat Justice Minister Maria Berger Wednesday introduced a first draft for a law granting gay couples the same rights as heterosexuals. The so-called registered partnership shows a number of parallels with traditional marriage law, complete with similar rights and duties, but was no “marriage light” Berger stressed and was independent of current marriage legislation.
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Berger’s draft will be discussed by a bipartisan working group before being introduced to parliament by the end of this year.
If only Austrian-born, gay marriage vetoing California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger were as progressive as his countrywomen.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
I must respectfully disagree. This is what Americans call the “Connecticut Canard.” The DLC gave approval to granting full as opposed to the VT partial marriage rights on a state level, without parity of one marriage licence for all.
The Austrians are just another EU nation with the Tony Bliar (the DLC of UK) compromise on rights without the equality of name under law. Try asking those hets married or marrying if they want to have a second tier document and call themselves “unionised” rather than married, eh?
I agree about Schwarzenegger. He is giving payback to all those who said that the onetime bodybuilder was gay. “I’m not gay, ask Maria and the women I have allegedly harassed” and no, for the second t
ime after being elected twice, no to marriage for gays. I am not gay.
Witness Sweden and other Scandanavian nations. They all adopted this canard years ago. Now decades later, they are having huge difficulties in changing the document to a marriage licence.
You either accept instant gratification ( cruel when you need some rights NOW and they know it) or you spend several more generations waiting for full equality.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
or….you can opt for full marriage rights and do what Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the Union of South Africa gay and lesbian activists wanted and took no compromise.
DavidDust
“The hills are alive….!”….
DavidDust
BTW – that pic is classic.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
The hills are alive with the sound of compromise. I can see the EU command to provide equal rights to do so with one final swipe at true justice and equality. Marriage is not religious, and they understand this on the Continent where you marry civilly and that is enough. Religious ceremonies are option and not binding under law.
Dawster
Flawed thinking Rev. Belgium FIRST allowed same-sex marriages from other countries to be “accepted†in there own, then (in 2004) allowed gay couples to marry in their country. They are still working on allowing gay partners to adopt.
The Netherlands FIRST had registered partnerships (1998), which eventually paved the way and allowed civil marriages (2001).
Canada FIRST had same-sex marriages in several provinces. The dispute of allowing couples to retain their rights from one province to the next caused the nation as a whole to trump the dispute and legally gay marriage as a whole.
Spain underwent a similar process. Since the 1990s, several areas allowed “civil unions.†It took until 2005 for that to be recognized nationally.
South Africa FIRST granted civil unions (1999) to same-sex partners before the Supreme Court eventually ruled in favor of same-sex marriage (thank you lesbians!) in 2004. It took another 2 years before same-sex marriage was legalized.
You see Rev., there is no “NOW”… and there is no waiting “several more generationsâ€. It’s called “due process†and it’s working. It’s slow, and sometimes it sucks – but it IS working. I agree, I want everything NOW too, but it’s not going to happen that way.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
You call my logic flawed, and yet, you live in a land where they want to constitutionally legislate your legal estrangement forever in all forms that approximate marriage. You have DOMA laws in most states, and the others, are poised to do so for the most part.
First of all, Canada was first. The marriage in 2001 predated the Dutch ceremonies, and when marriage was declared legal in ON, the licence was predated to 2001 when they should have legalised it.
Your facts about provinces first and nation later is correct, but your spin is not. We are a constitutional monarchical democracy not a parliamentary one. Our constitution is written not oral, like parliamentary monarchical democracies like the Mother Country.
Besides, you have marriage in MA and no one else can marry homosexually in that state if they are not residents, or in the case of RI, they can marry in MA because although they cannot marry in their own state, they have no DOMA. (Exhausted typing). Civil union canards are trumping marriage and I can just imagine you typing that Benelux countries, Canada, and former apartheid South Africa can give civil marriage.
You googled some correct information about the initial Belgian and Dutch marriage laws. They forbad adoption and surrogacy. Ditto Belgium. Yet they both have been given that right in the past year. With marriage, it was easy to argue for the whole package. Some lesbian friends of ours have two surrogate children.
CANada also allows all foreigners to marry regardless of nationality….problems in Europe and Africa.
We are speaking about the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance that boasts freedom and justice for all. Canadians grow up in the shadow of our super power neighbour and learn quickly that we have a firmer grasp on those values which some can only verbalise.
At the end of the day, I am in my home, with my married and legal spouse, and our legal children. We have all the benefits of opposite sex couples in my country…sine die.
Due process is exactly what the Republicans promised the blacks in the nineteenth century, and I guess that 102 years is incremental due process.