Civil unions fail to provide same-sex couples with the same rights and respect married heterosexual couples enjoy.

That is the conclusion of a growing body of research from places which have civil unions.

Reports from the UK, New Jersey and Vermont show civil union partners experience serious problems. These problems include failure of insurance companies, hospitals, schools and even government agencies, to provide civil union partners with equal rights, even if the law says they should.

The same trend emerges socially, with families and communities not taking civil unions as seriously as marriage. The underlying issue is that the legal and social meaning of civil unions is not widely understood.

In comparison, marriage provides everyone - gay and straight - with a common language to understand and express romantic love and life-long commitment.

The overseas reports go further, describing how discrimination against same-sex partners is actually re-enforced, not diminished, by the separate legal status that comes with civil unions.  

Thanks to the failure of civil unions to fulfil their promise, some civil union schemes overseas are being replaced with the full equality that comes with marriage equality.

Overseas courts and legislators are realising it is a mistake to further separate an already marginalised community from the mainstream.

Yet in this country groups like Rainbow Labor want to repeat that mistake rather than learn from it.  

Such groups put forward three arguments for the second-best option of a “marriage-lite”, national civil union scheme.

The first is that partners not interested in marriage deserve a choice when it comes to how they formalise their relationship.  

This is fine in principle, but in reality the only real choice on offer here is to politicians, not same-sex partners. When LGBT community advocates say they support both equal marriage and a national civil union scheme, politicians will move towards what they think is the easier option of civil unions, leaving same-sex partners no choice at all.

The second argument is that a national civil union scheme is more achievable, but this is debatable.  

It seems very unlikely that Kevin Rudd will allow nationally what he’s already stomped on in the ACT.  

Opinion polls of the general population show that those who support civil unions generally support equal marriage as well. Significantly, the same can’t be said for the LGBT community, where surveys show support for equal marriage is far higher than for civil unions.

The third argument is that a civil union scheme would be a step in right direction.  

But this has not been the case in places like the UK or New Zealand where marriage equality is as far away as ever, possibly because LGBT people spent so much of their political capital achieving what many didn’t really want anyway.

At some stage Australia must have a fully-fledged debate on same-sex marriage.  

Let’s start that debate today, instead of dithering with a civil union scheme in a vain attempt to dodge or appease opponents of equality.

For more on why civil unions are no substitute for equal marriage visit

http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/AME-MarriageNotCivilUnions.pdf

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