Civil union

Uncommon card · No. 112163

A civil union, also known by a variety of other terms, is a legal recognition of a relationship. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage, with child adoption being a common exception. Many jurisdictions with civil unions recognize foreign unions if those are essentially equivalent to their own; for example, the United Kingdom lists equivalent unions in the Civil Partnership Act 2004 Schedule 20. The marriages of same-sex couples performed abroad may be recognized as civil unions in jurisdictions that only have the latter. Civil unions have been established by law in several mostly developed countries in order to provide legal recognition of relationships formed by same-sex couples and to afford them rights, benefits, tax breaks, and responsibilities. In 1989, Denmark was the first country to legalise civil unions; however, most other developed democracies did not begin establishing them until the 1990s and early 2000s. In Brazil, civil unions were first created for opposite...

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