Think Marriage and Domestic Partnerships are the same?

I never once believed that domestic partnerships would ever be treated equally. Just reading the title of the article alone was enough to make me cringe. So many people I know around Kansas don't understand anything about how legal parameters and definitions can truly affect people that might otherwise be fine. Apparently domestic partnerships fall into the same category as nontraditional co-dependents living in California. Most states don't have laws that would guarantee help for people in trouble of any kind in these 'non-family' households.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDynaeB4MUI"]YouTube- Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families und[/ame]

This is a long video, 1:30:18, so I'll sum up about it, you'll have to forgive me since I haven't watched this for awhile and I'm recalling as best I can. The video is from a professor giving a guest lecture at Dartmouth about non-traditional families with a focus on homosexual couples.

The talk beings with sociopolitical effects on marriage during the 1960s that began a change of what marriage is in the public mindset. It talks a lot about marriage and the underlying reason on why homosexuals and advocates like to side with marriage as a building block of society. But to add more strength to her arguments (she is a same-sex advocate) she also discusses alternatives from the nuclear family and protections they should receive from county/state/federal law. Mostly roommates, sub-leasers, temporary residents, hospice, and extended family members moving in who at the moment don't have any of the same protections that married couples have. Might not seem like a big deal, but that is always the case until tragedy strikes and you find yourself on the wrong side of the law nobody but a family court judge or a law professor would know anything about.

The lecture points out where in social and political society there is a balance between undervaluing and overvaluing marriage. Where marriage is overvalued there are no protections from legal recourse for nontraditionals. Or inclusion for people not in a marriage with a spouse to perks such as survivor benefits, retention of property, or help with the loss of an economic provider.

Marriage undervalued displayed problems like no child-support benefits or visitation for a divorced spouse (namely fathers).

I have no clue what the state of California law is right now but if you go to 40:30 minutes in the video she talks about Harvey Milk's partner Scott who actually received workers comp. after Harvey's assassination. Granted the situation isn't the same as Clay's and Harrison's but obviously the times have changed and we're going backward in our thinking when it comes to law.
 
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