I suppose I really should mention...

[tcpip]

... that I suggested to caseopaya that we get a civil union in accordance with Victorian law.

She said yes.

(I "blame", in part, airiefairie's excellent proposal for ending state-sanctioned marriage in favour of civil unions for all, and beagl and kimeros for cutting a similar path. Thanks for the inspiration.)

Comments

[mr-orgue.livejournal.com]

Wahey! great news!

(y'know, Cal and I have struggled to find a good way to refer to each other; Civil Union Partner is terrible! We've defaulted to "husband" and "wife" (usually delivered in semi-ironic tone) even though we are expressly forbidden from using those terms in any formal sense. Be interested to see what you come up with!)

[zey.livejournal.com]

"S/he's my unionist"? :)

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

LOL I like this :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh, *golf clap*!

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

No, "my unionist" :)

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

Forbidden by whom? The marriage police?

[mr-orgue.livejournal.com]

NZ legislation for civil unions is basically a cut-and-paste of marriage legislation, but there's a clause that the words "husband" and "wife" are reserved for marriage and cannot be used in relation to civil unions.

So, yes, the marriage police.

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

It might just be my troublemaker tendencies, but I'd use it anyway just to see what would happen.

What would they charge you with?

[mr-orgue.livejournal.com]

Heh. Undermining the sanctity of the family unit! Really I guess it just means that if we ever make any legal declaration about each other, and we use the words "husband" and "wife", any other party who wants to can cause us legal headaches because by law we're not allowed to use those words. It's a stupid rule but because it's there it can be used!

Also, we couldn't use the words "husband" and "wife" in the formal parts of the ceremony - if we had, then legally the ceremony wouldn't have been performed properly and our celebrant wouldn't have signed off. It's that level of silliness.

Anyway, it's turned out to be quite a neat mental exercise. We actually quite like that we don't have social roles to fall into/rebel against, and instead we can make up our own...