drscott ([personal profile] drscott) wrote2004-01-25 12:04 am

Gay Divorce

Repeating something I said in comments:

One of the concerns I have about the domestic partnership law in California is that it comes closer and closer to the dysfunctional and expensive family law straight married people have to negotiate. In some cases the partner that chooses to pursue some unremunerative talent (and is supported by the other who sacrifices his/her talent to make enough money to live on) is awarded alimony even if there are no children involved. There is no codified "marriage lite" that allows you to keep separate property, though one can have prenups (more complications.) You will see more and more couples who would have loved to be domestic partners starting to question the benefits vs. the downside of having an expensive adversarial system imposed on them should they ever split up. I am sure CA legislators (who are nearly 100% lawyers) have no problem with increasing their future business by 5%, but it leaves some of us no better off, in that we still have to draw up extensive contracts to get the arrangement we prefer.