Recognition of same-sex unions in Germany

Since 1 August 2001, Germany has allowed registered life partnerships (Eingetragene Lebenspartnerschaft) for same-sex couples. These partnerships provide most but not all of the rights of marriage. Attempts to give equal rights to registered partners or to legalise marriage for same-sex couples have generally been blocked by the CDU/CSU. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany has however issued various rulings in favour of equal rights for same-sex registered partners, requiring the governing coalition to change the law.

An Act on Registered Life Partnerships of 2001 was a compromise between proponents of same-sex marriage and conservatives from the two major conservative parties, whose MPs' interpretation of marriage excludes gays. The act grants a number of rights enjoyed by married, opposite-sex couples. It was drafted by Volker Beck from The Greens and was approved under the Green/Social Democratic coalition government. The Bundestag approved it in November 2000 with the government parties voting in favour and the opposition parties CDU/CSU and FDP voting against. President Johannes Rau signed the law on 16 February 2001 and it entered into force on 1 August 2001.

On 17 July 2002, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany upheld the act. The Court found, unanimously, that the process leading to the law's enactment was constitutional. The 8-member Court further ruled, with three dissenting votes, that the substance of the law conforms to the constitution, and ruled that these partnerships could be granted equal rights to those given to married couples. (The initial law had deliberately withheld certain privileges, such as joint adoption and pension rights for widow(er)s, in an effort to observe the "special protection" which the constitution provided for marriage and the family. The court determined that the "specialness" of the protection was not in the quantity of protection, but in the obligatory nature of this protection, whereas the protection of registered partnerships was at the Bundestag's discretion.)

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