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German court rules: No gay ‘marriage’ in the country

Marriage can only be between one man and one woman, a German court has ruled in a case brought by two homosexual men who were “married” in Canada. The court ruled that a same-sex “marriage” contracted abroad is to be legally considered a civil partnership in Germany, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

The decision is a setback for the homosexualist movement in Germany, which had hoped to use the courts to force the legalization of gay “marriage.”

Andreas Boettcher, a 37-year-old German event manager, went to Montreal with his Spanish partner and undertook a civil marriage ceremony in July 2006. The pair returned to Germany and went to a Berlin administrative court when local authorities refused to recognize their Canadian marriage certificate. The pair had already been to Spain, where same-sex "marriage" has been legal since 2005, and registered there as a family.

In August 2001, Germany passed legislation allowing registered partnerships but, despite being one of the most sexually “progressive” countries in Europe, declined to go so far as to include homosexual partnerings in the legal definition of marriage.

In general, however, the homosexualist movement has been highly successful in using the German courts to attain its goals. In a 2009 case involving a dispute over pension benefits for a homosexual man in a registered partnership, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that all the same rights and obligations of marriage be extended to same-sex registered partners.

The same court ruled in July 2008 that a married man suffering from gender confusion, and who had undergone “gender reassignment” surgery, could remain married to his wife while changing his legal gender to female. The court ordered the legislature to change the law to accommodate such cases in the future.

In March of this year, the Senate of Berlin announced that it will introduce a same-sex “marriage” bill in the Federal Council (Bundesrat) in accordance with the 2009 court decision.

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TAGS: Germany same-sex “marriage” civil partnership legalization of gay “marriage”

[06/18/2010]

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