Gay rights around the world

[Marguerite de France]

Hi everybody!

I can't believe Im starting a new thread, its just so exciting! woohoo. The thing is Im usually too shy to post . This new thread is about gay rights around the world. I know that many kitten on the board live outside US and I think it would be interesting to know a little bit more about the rights people have in other countries! Tell us about the good and bad things, we are interested! I live in Québec, Canada... I know that I am lucky because here we have the right to marry, to adopt children etc but I know its not like that everywhere... In fact I started getting interested in gay rights around the world when I decided last month to go study in Germany next year and then I started being interested in rights every where!! So thats it, I put here gay rights in Canada in a statement of facts, it's a little bit long but very clear!



Factum - Same-Sex Marriage

PART I

STATEMENT OF FACTS

Overview

1. In this Reference, the Canadian Human Rights Commission (“Canadian Commission”) agrees with the Attorney General of Canada (“AGC”) in its affirmation of the validity of part 1 of the proposed federal legislation extending capacity to marry to same-sex couples across the country. The Canadian Commission agrees with the reasoning of the five courts in EGALE Appeal , Halpern and Halpern Appeal and Hendricks and Hendricks Appeal1 that only the extension of marriage to same-sex couples will achieve the imperatives of equality.

2. The Canadian Commission agrees that the proposed legislation deals only with marriage for civil purposes and has no effect on the freedom of religious officials to refuse to perform religious2 marriages that are not in accordance with their beliefs and traditions. A religious marriage ceremony is not reviewable under either the Charter or provincial or federal human rights instruments. In this context part 2 of the proposed legislation is declaratory, but not necessary, to give life to the concept of religious freedom.

3. However, in circumstances where religious officials offer civil marriage services to the public in a manner which brings them within the purview of statutory human rights instruments, the proposed legislation precludes those officials from refusing to marry same-sex couples. This interpretation of the legislation is consistent with a secular approach to civil marriage.

4. In its proposed legislation, the federal government has chosen to draw clear lines between civil and religious marriage with respect to capacity. The Canadian Commission supports this distinction as the appropriate balance between sexual orientation and religion. Same-sex couples should feel confident that they will not be refused a civil marriage because of their sexual orientation. Similarly, religious officials, conducting religious marriages should feel confident to decline to conduct any religious marriage which conflicts with their beliefs and traditions. Read in this context, part 2 of the legislation is unclear. It could be construed as a religious exemption to discriminatory conduct in the provision of public services which is much broader than a declaration of existing rights in the religious context.

5. The position of the Canadian Commission is that part two of the proposed legislation should be affirmed as declaratory and applying only to religious and not civil marriages. It may be that few religious officials who perform civil marriages will refuse same-sex couples and therefore be captured by the requirement to perform civil marriages for all couples. However, the general principle, which has implications for much larger numbers of people, is important to preserve: public services are to be delivered to citizens without discrimination and any balancing of rights required in the context of these disputes is driven by the facts and rights at stake in each case.

Summary of Facts

6. The Canadian Commission agrees, in general, with the facts as alleged by the AGC in both their factum and supplementary factum.

7. The proposed legislation, which expands civil marriage to include same-sex couples, is part of an evolution in human rights protections for gay, lesbian and bisexual citizens who have worked to eradicate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in some of the most basic elements of civic life.

Historically, same-sex equality litigation has focused on achieving equality in some of the most basic elements of civic life, such as bereavement leave, health care benefits, pensions benefits, spousal support, name changes and adoption. The question at the heart of this appeal is whether excluding same-sex couples from another of the most basic elements of civic life - marriage - infringes human dignity and violates the Canadian Constitution.3

8. In addition to the Charter4, the government of Canada has expressed its commitment to equality through statutory human rights instruments such as the Canadian Human Rights Act5. The CHRA, like its provincial counterparts, recognizes the rights of all Canadian citizens to equality in the civil context in areas such as employment and the provision of public services. To the extent that the performance of civil marriage ceremonies fall within the purview of statutory human rights instruments, it will be relevant to this Reference how conflicts between religion and other prohibited grounds, including sexual orientation, have historically been resolved in the provision of public services.





byebye!! Marilyn

excuse my english its my second language

[concrete]

I can be very brief about the situation in my country (Netherlands) as since April 1st, 2001 gay marriages ceased to exist.....only to be replaced by “marriage” in the full sense of the meaning.

This means a marriage can be entered between: female/female, male/male and female/male.

These combinations have exactly the same rights and obligations under Dutch law (Civil Law); this rather new Dutch law eliminates references to a person’s sex in the legal definition of marriage and granted same-sex married couples the same rights that heterosexual married couples have in areas such as inheritance, taxes, divorce, and pension benefits. The law permits same-sex couples to adopt Dutch children, but not children from other countries,

because legislators worried about possibly clashing with nations that ban adoptions by gays and lesbians. Also, a same-sex marriage would most likely not be recognized in other countries (therefore I specifically made the distinction ‘under Dutch law’ so it is useless for two people -2 females or 2 males- of, for instance, the U.S.A. to go to the Netherlands with the intend to marry it will simply not be recognized in their own country) with the exception of Aruba, Netherlands Antilles and Belgium in which latter country an almost equal marriage-form has been adopted since 2003 although it did not allow gay couples to adopt children and only Belgian citizens or a Belgian citizen and a citizen from a country that has full same-sex marriage equality (so far only the Netherlands) can enter this marriage (my explanation may be rather clumsy: it basically means that a Belgian female cannot marry a German female for instance.... a Dutch/Belgian f/f of m/m combination would be ok). All in all, the Netherlands is not such a bad country for gays and lesbians if you ask me.....

(Oh, I said I can be brief....never said I was going to... )

I have many skills....

[Miss Ediths Bad Kitty]

In the UK, homosexuality was legalized in 1967.



Earlier this year The Civil Partnership Bill went through parliament. (Which is a step in the right direction, but still discriminatory in that The Bill denies same-sex partners the same pension rights as married heterosexuals.)



Currently the only UK political party to come out and directly back an end to the "sexual apartheid" (their words) and the legalization of gay marriage is the Green Party. (The Greens, bless them, have also been at the forefront of pushing the EU's anti-discrimination agenda.)



The Civil Partnership Bill is generally of the good, I suppose, but it is NOT equality. It's a half-way house, at best.

[justin]

It's worth noting that the bill was passed with a very majority (429 for, 49 against) which is encouraging.



Unfornatunately it's a different matter in in the house of lords who tried a couple of times to prevent the bill by adding an ammendment that made it unworkable.



It's expected to take a year for this legislation to come into effect, so people won't be able to register till autumn next year.



Miss Ediths Bad Kitty is right that this isn't equality, but I thinks it's good that England is moving forwards rather than backwards like the USA and Australia.

--

Homer Simpson: When will people learn, democracy just doesn't work.

[kukalaka]

There are civil unions in Germany. They're not the same as marriages, even though they've recently been given more rights:



- There's the so called step child adoption now, which means one partner can adopt the other's "real" (can't find the word right now *g*) child as long as the other parent agrees or isn't known.

- So called widow's pensions (that you get in addition to your normal pension if your partner has died) are now handled the same way as with "real" marriages.



There are still differences, but some of them (not full adoption rights) are going to be addressed soon. What is encouraging is that the liberals now seem to be getting serious about gay rights (about time, as their leader is gay), forcing the states governments they're a part of (quite a few) not to block laws like that in the Bundesrat (kind of like the senate). So, right now, the conservatives should not be able to block any gay-rights-laws Also, they won't be able to undo any of them in case they win the next elections.



Also, our supreme court has already ruled that giving civil unions the same rights as "real" marriages is not unconstitutional. Which doesn't prevent the conservatives from threatening to sue, but it's more than just a little ridiculous



All in all: we're getting there. One little step at a time.





ETA: Where in Germany are you going Marguerite?

---

"[...] it is the inalienable right of every sentient being to live free, to pursue their dreams, to address wrongs within their own society without fear of retribution, to believe as their conscience requires in matters of faith, but also to respect the rights of others to believe differently or not at all." G'Kar (Babylon 5 - 5x01 - No Compromises)

Edited by: kukalaka at: 12/13/04 9:52 am

[Marguerite de France]

hey that was interesting, Im glad things are good in Netherlands, and Germany seems good too. You guys from UK, you'll have it!!, and yeah what is important is that your going forward! It's weird because it seems to me that things in Canada just went so fast but its because I started getting interested last year when everything just happened you know? I think we still have a long way to go before equality, but I think its possible, things are changing everywhere! even if in USA and Autralia things are not very good, I think thay can't ignore what's happening in other countries. thanks for replying byebye

Marilyn

(oh and concrete, you were brief ( yeahhhhh... hehe))

[sheila wt]

This is a good website to get more info:







Gay Laws Around the World

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Sheila

[Lazzzygirl]

Hey peeps.

I live in New Zealand and the new legislation was passed JUST LAST WEEK to allow gay people to marry! It's been an issue in the news for months with huge debates and protests in the main city streets. Everyone thought that the result would be a huge resounding NO because public polls showed that around 70-80% of people were opposed to same sex marraige in this country It was a HUGE suprise when the nation found out that it was a go-ahead for the gay marraige law thing. But since last week there have been protests and outrage over it from certain "religious" groups It sucks really...this country is usually considered very liberal, very forward thinking and extremely relaxed on race and gender issues....I'm surprised by the tense attitudes and debacle over it all. But yay for us

[Lil Miss Kitten]

it doesnt matter what legislation is passed or what practise becomes common law, people are always going to treat LGBT's like second class citizens. Regardless of where you are in the world. Sux big time

[taramagic]

yeah here in germany it´s different. some parts are really open minded abozt gay peple. i live in cologne. it one city with the most gay people in germany. every 10th here is gay (sorry for my bad english) and its really great here because we have a big CSD, many restaurants, clubs and everything and marriage is possible here! i love it here!