Power of love at heart of ‘gay marriage’

Legal rights and protections play second fiddle to the power of love for younger gay and lesbian couples who have formed civil partnerships, according to a three-year study by researchers at The University of Manchester. Funded by the Economic and Social Research council (ESRC), the study finds same sex couples mostly enter into civil partnerships to express the loving nature of their relationship and long-term commitment to each other, their families and friends. Based on in-depth s with 100 civil partners below the age of 35, the sociologists found they largely view and present themselves as 'ordinary married' couples like their heterosexual parents. The specialist study examined the couples separately and together along with their biographies to reveal an otherwise unreachable insight into the lives of same sex couples. One of the first research projects to acknowledge the impact of growing up with a sense of the acceptability and ordinariness of lesbian and gay relationships , it will form part of a book by Palgrave later this year. "The same sex couples we studied often related to each other in a similar way that their heterosexual married parents would do,” said Professor Brian Heaphy who conducted the research along with his Manchester colleagues Professor Carol Smart and Anna Einarsdottir. "And like many heterosexual marriages, their relationships involve negotiating money management and debt, and juggling the demands of work and home life.