Conservative Austria Legalizes Civil Unions

Beginning in 2010, gay and lesbian families in the conservative country Austria will be able to enter into civil unions--although the new status they will enjoy falls short: there are 37 specific rights and protections that heterosexual married couples will enjoy that will be denied to same-sex couples, including artificial insemination services and adoption rights.

Moreover, gay families will be denied a ceremony at registry offices, according to a Nov. 18 story in the Irish Times.

But in many financial areas, such as taxes and pensions, gay families will have parity with mixed-gender households. Austrian officials are content to accept the results of their hard-won rights for gay families and iron out the rest later. The legislation's sponsor, Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek, of the country's Social Democrats (SP�), said that the registry office denial was "temporary," while the head of the People's Party (�VP), Josef Pr�ll, praised the bill's advocates as having "gone far enough" and for "agreeing to what was possible."

The new legislation follows last year's abortive attempt to bring the Registered Partnership Bill 2008 before lawmakers. The Bill was left unaddressed when relations between the government's conservatives and progressives broke down.

The nation's Catholic Bishops oppose the new law, calling it "unnecessary," the Irish Times reported. Equality advocates emphasized the legal, rather than the theological, nature of the new law. Vienna city council member Marco Schreuder, a Green Party member, said, "What the church has to finally accept is that the question of state recognition of all forms of relationship is a state and not a religious matter."

But some of the country's gay families were displeased at the measure's legal shortfalls. "They can take the new law and stick it," one Viennese resident, identified only as Erich, said. Erich, who is in a decade-long relationship, added, "This law makes us into second-class citizens."

Anti-gay pundits see efforts among the member nations of the Council of Europe to bring gays and lesbians to full legal parity as a threat to religious freedoms. A Nov. 19 article at anti-gay religious Web site www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09111911.html warned that EU nations were threatened with "forced acceptance of [a] Homosexual, Bisexual, [and] Transgender Ideology," reporting that a human rights panel was slated to assess proposals to encourage the Europe-wide adoption f laws that allow gay and lesbian individuals and families all the same rights, protections, and benefits as those enjoyed by heterosexuals.

The article pointed to a passage in the proposal that set out the philosophy that "neither cultural, traditional, nor religious values, nor the rules of a 'dominant culture' can be invoked to justify hate speech or any other form of discrimination, including on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity." Religious conservatives interpret that philosophy as a challenge to the "right" of people of faith to attack gays and lesbians on the grounds of religiously based discrimination.