Take the survey on the future of civil partnership in Scotland here.

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014 means that same-sex couples are now able to have a marriage or a civil partnership in Scotland.

Currently, mixed-sex (legally female/male) couples can only choose marriage because the law in Scotland prevents mixed-sex couples from having a civil partnership. This also means that mixed-sex couples in a civil partnership from another country have no legal recognition for their relationship in Scotland.

Last year, the Scottish Government made a commitment to consult on the future of civil partnership in Scotland. This consultation is expected to take place later in 2015. There will be a number of options discussed, including:

1) Keeping civil partnership and opening it up to mixed-sex couples, so that all couples have the choice of marriage or civil partnership in Scotland

2) Keeping civil partnership but continuing to restrict it to same-sex couples only

3) Phasing out civil partnership altogether so that marriage becomes the only option available to couples in future (existing civil partnerships would continue).

Around the world, in countries that allow same-sex marriage, some countries have marriage and civil partnership open to all couples (e.g. the Netherlands, New Zealand, France), and some just have marriage (e.g. Portugal, Norway, Sweden) with no option of civil partnership. Only one jurisdiction in the world (England and Wales) has marriage open to all couples but restricts civil partnership to same-sex couples only.

In Scotland, marriage and civil partnership have almost identical legal effects but they have different names and are legally a different status. For various reasons, some people prefer marriage and other people prefer civil partnership.

In advance of the Scottish Government consultation the Equality Network is asking your opinion on the future of civil partnership in Scotland. Take part here.

The survey is open to everyone, including LGBTI people and non-LGBTI people. It is completely anonymous and should take approximately 10 minutes to complete.

Your response will help inform our ongoing work on partnership rights in Scotland and our submission to the Scottish Government consultation.

Over 800 people have responded so far, but we want to ensure that as many people as possible get to have their say, so please also encourage others to respond by sharing the survey on Facebook and Twitter: Click to share on Facebook    Click to share on Twitter

If you have any questions about the survey contact us at: en@equality-network.org.