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Archive Version of
Partners Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Couples Online from 1995-2022 Demian and Steve Bryant originally founded Partners as a monthly newsletter in 1986. By late 1990 it was reformatted into a bi-monthly magazine. Print publication was halted by 1995 when Demian published Partners as a Web site, which greatly expanded readership. In 1988, the Partners National Survey of Lesbian & Gay Couples report was published; the first major U.S. survey on same-sex couples in a decade. In 1996, Demian produced The Right to Marry, a video documentary based on the dire need for equality that was made clear by the data from the survey mentioned above. The video featured interviews with Rev. Mel White, Evan Wolfson, Phyllis Burke, Richard Mohr, Kevin Cathcart, Faygele benMiriam, Benjamin Cable-McCarthy, Susan Reardon, Frances Fuchs, Tina Podlodowski, and Chelle Mileur. Demian has been the sole operator during the last two decades of Partners. Demian stopped work on Partners Task Force in order to realize his other time-consuming projects, which include publishing the book “Operating Manual for Same-Sex Couples: Navigating the rules, rites & rights” - which is now available on Amazon. The book is based on the Partners Survey mentioned above, his interviews of scores of couples, and 36 years of writing hundreds of articles about same-sex couples. It’s also been informed by his personal experience in a 20-year, same-sex relationship. Demian’s other project is to publish his “Photo Stories by Demian” books based on his more than six decades as a photographer and writer. |
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“Civil Unions” were instituted in Austria on December 10, 2009. The law became active on January 1, 2010.
Although same-sex couples will parity gain in financial areas including taxation, they will not have access to adoption and insemination services, and will not be allowed a ceremony at registry offices. There are a total of 37 differences between the Unions and the the rights and obligations of legally married couples. The compromise bill creates an apartheid status for same-sex couples.
The Civil Union bill passed 110-64 in parliament. The new Civil Union status was a result of two decades of lobbying by Homosexual Initiative Vienna, Austria’s oldest gay men and lesbian group. The right-wing Freedom Party rejected the legislation for going too far, and the Greens said it didn’t go far enough. While Austria is considered one of the more conservative countries in the European Union, a 2006 European Union poll — surveying up to 30,000 people — showed Austrian support for same sex-marriage at 49 percent, which was higher than the EU average of 41 percent.
Austria had provided rights for de facto same-sex unions since 2003, following the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Karner v. Austria. This status, called “unregistered cohabitation,” gave cohabiting same-sex couples the same rights as unmarried cohabiting opposite-sex partners.
This domestic partnership status does not work as a model for America, because implementing an equivalent legal status to marriage requires duplicating 150-to-350 laws in each state, and more than 1,138 laws on the federal level. [See U.S. Federal Laws for the Legally Married.] The whole idea is completely impractical. Further, domestic partnerships are usually not recognized outside of the issuing state. Because of the lack of portability, they create a patchwork legal status as a couple moves or vacations.
While such contracts are an attempt to create equal treatment, they only reinforce a separate and totally unequal status, one we consider to be a manifestation of apartheid. [See Marrying Apartheid: The Failure of Domestic Partnership Status] For a vast survey, please see our: Legal Marriage Report: Global Status of Legal Marriage
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