Well somebody had to bring it up...
The Civil Partnership Act comes into force on 5 Dec 2005, details of the Act can be found here:
http://www.womenandequalityunit.gov....ilpartnership/
The Act gives legal recognition for sam-sex couples who enter into a relationship that they 'register'. Registered partners can then claim all the benefits that married people get; pensions, Death-In-Service Benefits, LSSA, SFA, all the things you'd expect. However, heterosexual couples will still not be recognized by the forces, unless the 2 people are married.
So here's my point; Let's say that I'm one of the many thousands of heterosexual couples who don't go through the marriage service, but I live with my partner for a long time, have kids together, buy a house together etc, you could call it a common law marriage; am I being discriminated against? Because same-sex couples, who are not married, will be given more rights than different sex couples, who are not married.
Just doesn't quite seem right to me.