(London) More than 16,000 same-sex couples took advantage of Britain's civil partnership law in its first full year the government said Friday.

The civil partnership law went into effect in December 2005.

Both marriage and partnerships have the same rights and responsibilities but gays and lesbians cannot call themselves married.

The difference is critical for gay leaders who point out the inequity in the law, but for non-gays, especially the media, both are the same. The media has seldom used the phrase' civil partnership', opting instead to call the unions 'marriage'.

Nearly 2,000 gay weddings took place in the first month.

Throughout 2006 more than 4,000 partnerships were registered in each quarter. Statistics for 2007 have not been made available.

The government report said that a third of all gay male partnerships and 15 percent of lesbian partnerships were recorded in London.

The report also shows that 10 per cent of gays and almost 25 percent of lesbians entering civil partnerships had previously been in opposite-sex marriages.

The average age for gay men registering a same-sex partnership was 47 and for lesbians nearly 44. The average age gap between partners was eight years for men and six years for women.

The report noted that none of the partnerships has ended in "divorce" - or what the legislation calls a partnership "dissolution". That may only be a technicality though. The law requires couples to have been in a partnership for one year before applying to dissolve the union.

Originally published: 12 October 2007

�365Gay.com 2007