[LINK] Same-Sex Unions Down Under

[rfmcdonald]

Antipodean correspondent Errol Cavit informs me that New Zealanders are not very excited by the first crop of civil unions.

[D]espite the months of staring down the Catholic Church and Destiny Church, of fronting up to select committee hearings and marching to get the same legal rights as married couples, there will be no shot-gun civil unions here, thank you.

Barring a last-minute stampede, it is shaping up to be a lot more low-key than in the United States on July 1, 2000, when Vermont became the first state to pass a civil union law.

Town Clerk Annette Cappy opened her office on the last stroke of midnight, and minutes later Kathleen Peterson, 41, and Carolyn Conrad, 29, had a ceremony with 75 friends and relatives around a candle-lit fountain.

Jewellers advertised civil union rings, bakers made same-sex wedding figures for cakes, and a boutique brewery, owned by lesbians, launched Gay Pride Ale.

Dean Knight, a law lecturer at Victoria University, said New Zealanders were just more low-key.

Mr Knight has every intention of joining partner Alan Wendt in a civil union. But not just now.

"I always think a spring civil union is much nicer than one in autumn anyway."