Australia's Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - General Law Reform) Act 2008: changes take effect March 15th

03/15/09 Australian Gay and Lesbian Blog:

Changes take effect today in Medicare, taxation, social security, and immigration - among many other legal changes - that "remove discrimination against same sex couples" in Australia. However, one key form of discrimination remains, as family law solicitor Stephen Page, of Brisbane, notes in his comment to an earlier post: "it ignored the elephant in the room - some same sex couples want to have the same freedom to marry as straight couples."

The nearest U.S. equivalent of Australia's "legal de facto relationships" appears to be in states like California, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington, where civil unions or domestic partnerships are supposed to provide most or nearly all of the rights, benefits, and duties of marriage under state law, even though same-sex couples are still denied a right to marry. And even married same-sex couples in Connecticut, Massachusetts and California might be thought to enjoy less than a full and equal right to marry, because federal law does not recognize their marriages.