EQUALITY NETWORK - Print Friendly

05/19/2005
Equality for same-sex couples
Between 2000 and 2005, the law for same-sex couples was hugely improved, but there were still some inequalities to be eliminated.

Since 2000, the Scottish Parliament has been gradually amending the laws that provide protection to cohabiting (unmarried) mixed-sex couples, so that they apply to cohabiting same-sex couples also. The Civil Partnership Act 2004, which came into effect on December 5th 2005, introduces civil partnership as a new status for same-sex couples with the same legal obligations and protections as marriage has for mixed-sex couples. The Civil Partnership Act also continues the job of extending the law on cohabitation to treat mixed-sex and same-sex cohabitants more equally.
However, following the passing of the Civil Partnership Act, there were still a few areas of cohabitation law that did not properly cover same-sex cohabitants, and in a few small ways the Civil Partnership Act did not provide complete equality between the legal treatment of civil partnership and civil marriage. We campaigned for these problems to be fixed by the Family Law (Scotland) Bill which was considered by the Scottish Parliament during 2005.

In July 2004 we submitted evidence to the Scottish Executive when it consulted on the proposals for the Family Law Bill.

In May 2005 we submitted detailed evidence on the Family Law (Scotland) Bill to the Scottish Parliament Justice 1 Committee, for the Committee's stage 1 consideration of the bill, and on May 11th we gave oral evidence to the Committee.

We are glad to say that the Family Law Bill was amended by the Scottish Parliament to deal with our concerns. The bill was passed on December 15th 2005 and came into effect as the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 in May 2006.

This leaves one remaining area of family law in which same-sex and mixed-sex couples, and their families, are still treated differently. That is parenting law, including the laws on adoption, fostering, and fertility treatment.The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill currently before the Scottish Parliament will remove the remaining discrimination in adoption and fostering law. The law on fertility treatment is reserved to Westminster, so can only be amended by a Westminster Bill.