News from Swedish gay/lesbian politics Published by the Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights (RFSL) No. 10/94 (March 7th-13th, 1994) 1 RFSL's formal remarks The RFSL has now submitted its formal remarks on the proposal of the Partnership Commission. In the formal remarks the RFSL proposes approval of the proposed partnership act, and the unisexual cohabitation act and supports the proposal that the issue about the children of gay men and lesbians be investigated further. The RFSL has strong objections against the Commision's discus- sion on the issue of children of gay men and lesbians. The formal remarks contain 26 pages and can be obtained from the RFSL. 2 More formal remarks Statistics Sweden (SCB) states that the proposal of the Part- nership Commission, if adopted, will bring with it increased costs for the SCB. Furthermore, the SCB writes that "the chosen terminology partnership, partner and partnership divorce will lead to lingual problems that can influence the statistics negatively, since the word partner generally is used with other meanings. The word cohabitant without specification should also in the future mean heterosexual cohabitation." The District Court of V„xj” writes: "The District Court lacks information and therefore cannot determine the need for the pro- posed partnership act. However, if there is such a need, the District Court regards the chosen legislation technique to be correct." "As regards the proposals as a whole, the District Court lacks proposals concerning the economic circumstances for people who live together for one reason or the other and who are not targeted by the partnership law or the cohabitation law, e.g. sisters and brothers. The Commission has abstained from doing any inquiry work about this, however little, group. However, the District Court thinks that there may be a need to regulate these people's cir- cumstances and that the motivation for the Commission's rejection is weak. The Commission should instead have illuminated the circumstances for different types of cohabiting people in order to clarify the need for a protection for these people's interactions, at least the economic ones." The District Court also says that the word partner is not well chosen since the word also is used in business circumstances and concerning the NATO's "Partnership for peace". In addition, the District Court indicates that the word partner "lacks a plural form". The District Court questions that regulations that are "manifestly dependent on the spouses being of opposite sexes" should be excluded from the legal consequences of the partnerhsip. The District Court means that the word "manifestly" can be questioned and that the word therefore should be deleted. The District Court also criticizes that the proposed unisexual cohabitation act lacks a definition of "cohabitation": "The District Court finds it questionable whether the definition in the heterosexual cohabitation act is so general that it can be used in all legislation." The County Administrative Court in Uppsala writes: "The County Administrative Court shares the basic position of the Partnership Commission that it is not the task of the society to have a view on people's choice of cohabitation form. The Commission has however contradictingly stated that one of several aims of the proposed legislation is to influence the opinion in these questions. The County Administrative Court regards that a legal regulation of the cohabitation for the homosexuals and also for other forms of household communities should be done only if there is an explicit material need for it. It is completely correct that love between people is an impor- tant force for both personal and societl development - regardless if it exists between two people of the same sex or of opposite sexes. However, the County Administrative Court does not think that particularly a love relationship between homosexual couples needs to be manifested in a particular way by a framework supplied by the state; in the same way that two people who live together in a friendship relationship do not need it. Nor does the need for an economical and legal security besides what is supplied in the homosexual cohabitation act seem to be so explicit that a partnership act for homosexual people is necessary. According to the view of the County Administrative Court there is an important - and inevitable - difference; the former is intended to lay a foundation for the security of the children, why regulations are needed to steer the relations in the relationship and give parents and children access to different economical and social security systems. The corresponding needs are normally not there for the homosexual couples to a higher degree than for people who live in other forms of household communities. With regard to the fact that in the group homosexuals there seems to be relatively few who live in stable relationships, the County Administrative Court cannot see thet there is an important need for these couples to create regulations which steer their economical and legal relations. The demand for registration of partnership can, with regard to known circumstances and in the light of Danish experiences, be expected to be low. In Denmark a partnership act came into force on October 1st, 1989. According to the report of the Commission, 1,276 partnerships were entered during two years and three months. During the same period 709 partnerships were dissolved. If this group will increase in the future due to changed living patterns there may be reasons to adopt the proposed unisexual cohabitation act. In that case, also other forms for cohabitation should be subject to a greater attention. With this basic view, the County Administrative Court proposes rejection of the proposal to introduce a partnership act and a unisexual cohabitation act." Furthermore, the County Administrative Court criticizes that the Commission has not investigated the international consequences of the law. If a law is adopted, continues the County Administrative Court, it should not be named partnership act but rather "same-sex couple relationship act". The Christian Democratic Party in Skaraborg has written formal remarks with the same words as the article that Ulla-Britt Hag- str”m published in the christian daily Dagen on February 10th (see News from Swedish gay/lesbian politics). The organization "the Ethical Fund" has through its chairperson Harald Ljungstr”m written formal remarks and proposed rejection of the proposals of the Partnership Commission with reference to Lv 18:22, Ex 19, Mt 10:14-15 and Rm 1:26. More formal remarks can be found in News from Swedish gay/lesbian politics 8/94 and 9/94. 3 Editorial in Bohusl„ningen The liberal daily Bohusl„ningen was one of the papers that in the beginning of March published the ad "Defend the marriage" (see News from Swedish gay/lesbian politics 9/94). On March 7th, the paper wrote in an editorial concerning the ad: "The legal function of the marriage is built on a need of social security, that is the same for the homosexual as for the heterosexual. In addition there is an emotional part, when you want to confirm for each other and the surrounding that you love each other. A gay man or lesbian can feel this need as much as a heterosexual can. Making a difference in the registration means meking a difference between love and love, i.e. the gay and lesbian love is not as good. This position should not be approved by Parliament and Government. Christian representatives do this because of formulations in the Bible. This has nothing to do with security for today's or tomorrow's generation, but rather with the belief that a god has denounced homosexuality. A society that wants to give secutrity and equal conditions for all people cannot adopt laws according to such notions, but should rather see to that people get good life conditions."