Simple fact is that our society is a nation of forms, of neatly documented pigeon holes for everything. To call the union between two people anything but Marriage throws the entire paper police into a frenzy. However, worse than that, it forces people to declare their homosexuality to nameless drones. A man and woman don’t have a ‘civil partnership‘ nor do they have a ‘civil union‘ or even a ‘civil registration‘. They have a Marriage, and so when you open up a joint chequing account, you enter the words MARRIED behind your classification.
Unless you are a Homosexual.
So what you say. I mean who cares what the form says or how you have to list it. Well, have you ever thought that whether you are gay or not is the business of the neighbour next door? How about your mailman? How about the various Political Parties? Neighbourhood Church or School perhaps? Think they should all know you are Gay?
Problem with these endless forms you fill out to show you are in a ‘civil partnership‘ is you have no idea who is reading them. What if the file clerk at your local bank who files your loan application, showing you are in a ‘civil partnership‘ is also head of the school PTA? You know, the place where you teach?
The financial public service organization Citizens Advice found that the term “civil partnership” has created a second class that results in same-sex couples being inadvertently “outed” owing to the generic nature of corporate and bank forms. (source)
You can say it is legal, that no matter what you call it, as long as there is no difference in rights, what does it matter. BUT IT DOES MATTER.
It is giving huge companies access to your sexual orientation, without your permission. It becomes a simple matter for that knowledge to get out, as no Institute is safe from hacking, from stolen files. The use of any other term but MARRIAGE puts you at risk, at being DISCOVERED. For myself, I couldn’t care less who knows, but then I live in Canada. Think the guy next door in Texas who has a rack of guns, hates them LIBERAL NORTHERNERS, is going to be thrilled living next door to a Fag?
