Halina Bendkowski cannot stop smiling when she remembers the first time she met Lydia, the American woman with whom she has shared her life for the past nine years. Halina, who is a sociologist, was visiting the United States from Berlin for an academic conference and it did not occur to her that the fact that she and Lydia were of different nationalities would be enough to keep them apart.

"It was love at first sight. It was exactly what I was dreaming of all my life so when it happened I couldn't resist it. I thought that in this globalised age, it would work. But it hasn't been that easy," she says.

Halina can only stay in the US for three months at a time and although Lydia can remain in Germany for longer periods, she is not allowed to work. So the couple divide their time between two continents, picking up work where they can and just about making ends meet.

The problem is that, as a same-sex couple, Halina and Lydia are entitled to none of the legal rights enjoyed by married couples, who are almost automatically allowed to live and work in one another's country. Before they entered government, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens promised to change the law on gay partnerships - a move that Halina expected fully would transform her life.

"It would be much easier because my girlfriend could work here. She could earn money for health insurance and social insurance. She's is in her 40s now too and we have to think about our pensions and how we'll fare when we get older. We are really not able to do that now," she says.

But when Germany's justice ministry drew up a draft law earlier this month, it fell far short of what gay activists were looking for. Instead of putting gay couples on the same footing as married people, it offered piecemeal changes to a few laws but left most areas to the discretion of other government departments.

Under the new law, gay couples would be allowed to register their partnerships at state registry offices and use a common surname and they would be obliged to take financial responsibility for one another. But immigration law would remain unchanged, along with laws governing tax, inheritance, tenant law and adoption of children.

The German Gay and Lesbian Association were furious, accusing the justice minister, Dr Hertha Daeubler-Gmelin, of cowardice and of cementing discrimination against homosexuals by leaving gay couples at a disadvantage.

"We want a registered partnership that has all the same rights and obligations as marriage," says the association's spokesman, Klaus Jetz.

The justice minister insists that, although she favours greater equality, any reform is useless unless it can pass through both houses of parliament. Because the government does not command a majority in the upper house, the Bundesrat, this means winning the approval of the opposition Christian Democrats.

The Christian Democrats resist any change, not least because many of their supporters are Catholics and the Catholic Church is fiercely opposed to any legal recognition of gay partnerships. The Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, led the attack this month with an article in the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning that any change in the law would undermine the institution of the family.

The cardinal acknowledges that homosexuals have suffered terribly during the past century and points out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church explicitly condemns discrimination against gay people. But he fears that allowing gays to marry - or even to register their partnerships - would have an impact far beyond the homosexual community.

"One can certainly consider whether people who are not married but who have taken care of one another for a lifetime should be better placed legally in certain matters. But that cannot mean that these relationships are put on the same level as marriage and the family. Anything that imitates marriage, such as a registry office ceremony, using a common surname, etc., must be rejected," he writes.

Although gay couples in countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands enjoy almost all the rights of married people, some gay activists argue that pursuing a gay marriage law is the wrong strategy to achieve equality. For Irish gays and lesbians, the issue of marriage is scarcely on the agenda.

"There hasn't been a full-scale debate within the community about exactly what sort of partnership law we want. I couldn't say now that it is the wish of the Irish lesbian and gay community to have a campaign for full marriage rights. I think some people would like the opportunity to do so but it has not been an articulated demand," says Chris Robson, co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network.

Yet Irish gays have seen their legal status changed dramatically during the past seven years by a succession of measures outlawing discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere. The recent Budget changed the rules on Capital Acquisition Tax to allow two people who have shared a home for more than three years to inherit from one another on the same basis as a couple who are married.

This measure, which was first proposed by Senator David Norris three years ago, improves the lot of all unmarried couples, whether they are gay or not. This is in keeping with the strategy of Irish gay activists to pursue reforms in concert with other minorities and disadvantaged groups.

The strategy has been so successful that, less than a decade after the decriminalisation of homosexual acts, this State has more comprehensive anti-discrimination protection for homosexuals than most of our EU partners - even without a gay partnership law.

"We're right up there at the top where everything else is concerned. The legal situation has been transformed by measures, almost all of which went through without a single vote being cast against them in the Dail," says Robson.

He predicts that a partnership law will be passed within three or four years but if experience elsewhere in Europe is any guide, any proposal to allow gay couples to adopt children is likely to meet stiff opposition. Even in countries where gay marriage has been relatively uncontroversial, many heterosexuals believe that children brought up by homosexuals face a heightened risk of sexual abuse.

"Look what happens in straight families. It would probably happen in some gay families too but it is no more likely than among heterosexuals," Halina says.

"My girlfriend would have liked to have children. I met some families like this and it's wonderful. I would have dreamed of growing up with parents like this because they really want their children so much."

ALTHOUGH the German draft law is still being revised, Halina accepts that her situation is unlikely to change in the near future. She believes that the only hope lesbians and gays have of achieving full equality is if heterosexuals stand up for the rights of their gay friends. It is, she maintains, a simple question of justice and humanity.

"Human beings need relationships, they need love. Everybody needs someone to love. But this right is not given to homosexuals," she adds.

You can contact Denis Staunton at dstaunton@irish-times.ie Halina Bendkowski is at strykbendk@ipn-b.de The International Lesbian and Gay Association is at www.ilga.org Ireland's Pink Pages are at www.indigo.ie/outhouse