At present only married couples - not civil union partners - can adopt in France.
BBC: French gay marriage and adoption bill backed by cabinet
New Jersey he can perform marriages for heterosexual couples and civil union ceremonies for same-sex couples.
FORBES: The Next Same-Sex Marriage Battle: Who Will Officiate?
Wald's firm convinced the court in California that the civil union in Vermont could be retroactively dissolved.
The first civil union of this kind, between two gay men, will take place in Montpellier next week.
Five states, including Illinois, have civil union laws, according to Lambda Legal and the National Conference of State Legislatures.
He says he and his partner got a civil union in Vermont because the rights were too important to pass up.
Eight such states have civil union or strong domestic partnership laws-- Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Rhode Island.
CNN: Obama views on same-sex marriage reflect societal shifts
Such civil union laws in most cases provide the same rights of marriage under state law, without actually calling it that.
The couple were joined in a civil union in Vermont in 2000, shortly after the state passed the nation's first civil-union law.
If civil unions would be equal to marriage, you would have to ask if Vermonters would trade their marriage for a civil union.
Frigide, just like a majority of the French, supported the civil union enacted in 1999, the so-called Pacs, designed mainly for same sex couples.
The council that oversees the country's judiciary said it was wrong for some offices just to issue civil union documents when the couple wanted full marriage certificates.
He dismisses the idea that gay couples could be granted rights equal to marriage under the rubric of something other than marriage, such as a civil union.
Since his election he's often expressed his dismay over growing secularism in Europe, with many countries passing or planning to legalize same-sex marriage or civil union agreements.
Three years later, roughly the same proportion of civil-union couples and married couples had split but just two of the 13 same-sex couples had legally terminated their civil union.
Another nine have civil union or strong domestic partnership laws.
CNN: Obama views on same-sex marriage reflect societal shifts
The Justice Department argues civil union and domestic partnership laws may themselves be unconstitutional and that those states should go all the way and grant same-sex couples full marriage rights.
CNN: Obama views on same-sex marriage reflect societal shifts
The last thing they want to do now is hire caterers to celebrate a civil union only to find themselves reciting vows, yet again, if and when real marriage becomes available.
But she had previously been in a civil union with someone else in Vermont, which had never been dissolved because California wasn't recognizing the other state's civil unions at that time.
"At this point, what I've said is that my baseline is a strong civil union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have, " Obama said at the time.
CNN: Obama views on same-sex marriage reflect societal shifts
Known in France as the PACS (pacte civil de solidarite), the civil union agreement can be entered into by gay or straight couples and confers many but not all of the rights of marriage.
In Weston, though the town clerk was happy to give Mr Perry and Mr Evans their civil licence, four of the town's five justices of the peace are unwilling to solemnise a civil union.
Known in France as the PACS, or pacte civil de solidarite, the civil union agreement can be entered into by same-sex or straight couples and confers many but not all of the rights of marriage.
The 90-minute opener is a four-pronged prelude to "I do, " which in the gay Blair and Jeff's case means a California-approved civil union, and for Tarz and Tina a Hindu wedding processional down their Columbia, S.C.
He has suggested replacing register office marriages and civil partnerships with a new form of civil union to "strengthen the concept that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, to leave that to faith to implement".
Obama signaled earlier this month he was prepared to assert a vigorous constitutional right to marriage, but confine it for now only to the Proposition 8 matter and perhaps to the seven other states with civil union laws like California's.
CNN: Obama views on same-sex marriage reflect societal shifts
Obama had signaled last week he was prepared to assert a vigorous constitutional right to marriage, but confine it for now only to the Proposition 8 case and perhaps to the seven other states with civil union laws like California's.
They were compared with 84 same-sex couples in their friendship circle who didn't get civil unions, and with 55 heterosexual married couples in which one of the spouses was a sibling of one of the same-sex couples in a civil union.
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