Marriage and Civil Unions: Legal and Moral Questions

In December 2006, the Civil Partnerships Bill 2006 (ACT) was introduced in the ACT Legislative Assembly that would extend to same-sex (and heterosexual) couples who have declared their commitment to each other by entering a ‘civil partnership’ the legal consequences that ACT laws attach to ‘domestic partnerships’ (what other Australian jurisdictions call ‘de facto relationships’). The Bill was introduced in response to the Howard Government's disallowance, in June 2006, of the Civil Unions Act 2006 (ACT) (' Civil Unions Act ’), passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly almost exactly one month before. The Civil Unions Act had created an institution paralleling heterosexual marriage but open to both same-sex and different-sex couples. A civil union was similar to marriage both to the extent that a ceremony was required for it to be brought into existence and because a validly contracted civil union was to be treated like marriage for the purposes of all ACT laws.