Facebook - add "Civil Partnership" to relationship status

"Married" is a globally accepted and understood term whereas "civil partnership" only applies to a few countries. My guess is that being a global site they are sticking with terms that are globally known. Otherwise the choice would have numerous terms that apply to individual countries.

If they had regional sites like MySpace (myspace.com, myspace.co.uk etc) then it would be more practical to customise the different versions for the specific countries. But I think Facebook is just facebook.com for everyone.

 

Well... except for the fact that initially when Facebook started it was very much a US-based site which then expanded quite rapidly in Canada.

What they could do (and probably should do) is add some default choices for relationship status (and gender) and then let people fill in a blank if the standard labels don't fit. Kinda like one can do here on EC with orientation and out status, if I recall correctly.

If there's anything at work with Facebook, it's probably more accurately described as heterosexism and not homophobia, where heterosexism is the institutionalised entrenchment of the notion that heterosexuality is where it's at and anything that falls outside the realm of heterosexuality is vastly less important to take note of or to acknowledge.

 

The idea of a "civil partnership" is laughable to anyone with at least a grain of social foresight. (I suspect future generations will look upon it just as queerly as we look upon the "separate, but equal" movement in education which was finally put to an end, at least in theory, in the last century.) Anyone who thinks that "marriage" will never grow to encompass any and all combinations of two people is either inrreparably brainwashed or Republican (or, most probably, both). Thus, I see it as odd to get up in arms over whether or not Facebook lists "Civil Partnership" in their list of relationship status choices.

(It is rather like saying, "Hey, this site isn't reinforcing the marginalizing and humiliating second-rate imitation of marriage that my partner and I have! We must defend our being discriminated by insisting that our favorite rate race of online popularity--Facebook, in this case--include it their available profile options!")

Honestly, if you're engaged in a civil partnership with someone, you are married, for all intents and purposes, even if bigoted conservatives dare to say otherwise. Worry not, marriage will come with time.