Domestic partners Joslyn Baker and Sarah Butler of Salmon Creek said they would marry if Washington becomes the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage this year.
“We would get married in a second,” Baker said. “It gives us public recognition of our relationship.” But for now, the advantages of marriage for same-sex couples would end with recognition.
Legalizing same-sex marriage, as Gov. Christine Gregoire has proposed, would not offer any material benefits that the state’s domestic partnership law doesn’t already provide (or will provide by 2014). Apart from the label of marriage, domestic partnership benefits in Washington are nearly identical to marriage benefits. That includes, among other things, the ability to make medical decisions for an incapacitated domestic partner and the option to add a domestic partner to a family health insurance plan provided by an employer. Those same-sex benefits end at the state line. The federal government, bound by the Defense of Marriage Act, doesn’t recognize domestic partnerships or same-sex marriage. Hence, same-sex couples receive none of the federal benefits of marriage.
Click here for gay wedding resources in Washington State.
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