CIVIL PARTNERSHIP ACT: Immigration Questions

Maybe but I also think that a lot of people over a certain age (30 or so?) start to feel silly calling their SO 'my boyfriend' or 'my girlfriend'.

Oh, I get it, you also mean folks that live together but aren't married. Yes, you're probably right. Maybe mroe so in the UK which doesn't have the kind of civil rights politics concerns of US liberals.

I think that liberal straights started to call their relationships, partnerships, out of respect for those who were legally prohibited from marriage and as a way of refusing the privileges of heteronormatism.

Possibly and I would regard myself as being liberal but that doesn't mean I like the term partner.  I think Balmerhon has a point too,  when you reach a certain age girlfriend or boyfriend does feel a bit silly.  But since I AM married, I prefer to say husband and wife, although those terms aren't perfect either, being imbued with all sorts of gender stereotypes.

Of course, if you want to get rid of all gender stereotypes - we could just go around referring to each other as "Citizen."

Wait - that's been tried before, hasn't it? 

As a woman who never thought she'd have a real "partner" never mind a HUSBAND - bring on the gender stereotypes!!! 

Well, it's probably not coincidental that the French Revolutionaries who instituted the use of citizen as a title were also the first ones in the history of the modern West to abolish the laws criminalizing homosexuality.

As followers of Godwin and Wollstonecraft, my girl-mate and I are against the concept of marriage, but that's partly because we have the privilege of refusing the title unlike our gay comrades (or those who need it for visa reasons)!

Yes and the French also waited until 1945 to give women the vote 

ps Wasn't Mary Wolstonecraft married?

Yep.

To Godwin. 

It's not the fault that the Left governments that instituted civil rights fell quickly and had their progressive legislation (like the first divorce laws) remanded by royalists and conservatives. Yes, Wollstonecraft finally married Godwin and believe me it was considered a major scandal by their friends, some of whom broke relations with the two because of what was seen as a betrayal. But while G and W married, they never lived together and kept their own residences.

Without wishing to sound glib or over simplify French history, it seems to me they could have introduced universal sufferage if they could decriminalise homosexuality.  Reminds me of Eldridge Cleaver (I think it was him, correct me if I'm wrong) patting Shulamith Firestone on the head and telling her there were more important issues to discuss than women's rights.

Sorry this is way off the origianl topic!

I agree but then the French Revolution crucially never instituted universal emancipation for white men either. The property qualification wasn't challenged, and this is one reason why the Jacobins fell.

Wow... you guys are awesome.  Thanks for all the replies.  I'm pretty new to this board (having been resigned to a pond-jumping relationship until news of the Act's passing Royal Assent a few months ago), so it's nice to hear straight (pardon the pun) info from folks who actually know what they're talking about, and aren't full of vague, misleading advise. 

We're planning to settle in the UK (our only option, since the US still has it's head up it's own self-righteous @ss), so it seems it may not be quite as difficult as we were heretofore imagining it would be (cross your fingers, everybody...).

Thanks again!!!
   Khalil

Best of luck.  It seems like once the CPA is enacted, you shouldn't have any problems getting the appropriate visas and being able to move over.

Legalities aside, if "husband" or "wife" isn't legally accurate, and "partner" sounds too unaffectionate, how about going with "soulmate," until the laws change?