Gay Couples Law Blog : Atlanta Same Sex Family Law and Estate Planning Commentary : Gideon Alper : Gay Law, Domestic Partnerships

The Maryland attorney general today said that the state should recognize gay marriages performed in other states. Here's the text [PDF] of the attorney general's opinion.

This would make Maryland and New York the only states that don't allow gay marriage themselves, but do recognize ones from states where gay marriage is legal.

But be careful what you read about this. The Lambda Legal press release, for example, says that Maryland has now joined New York in recognizing out of state gay marriages, but the attorney general's opinion has made no new law.

In fact, the opinion suggests three ways Maryland could implement this recognition:

Such marriages may be recognized in several ways. First, legislation enacted by the General Assembly could provide for recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages generally, or for particular purposes. Second, in the absence of legislation, the Court of Appeals, applying common law choice-of-law principles, could decide that such marriages will be recognized in Maryland, either generally or in particular circumstances. Finally, a State agency may also address the recognition of out-of-state marriages on particular matters within that agency's jurisdiction, so long as the agency's action is consistent with any relevant statutes and court decisions, including federal laws that may govern the agency's activities.

I also found interesting the attorney general's list of how the marital status of gay couples married in a different state is important to the Maryland government. He said:

1. The couple could move to Maryland for employment.
2. They might take a vacation in Maryland or stop there while traveling to another state.
3. They might live in Maryland, go to another state to get married, and then return.
4. Without ever stepping foot in Maryland, their marital status might be legally significant for other people that do live there.

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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that Louisiana has to recognize the New York same-sex adoption of a Louisiana child even though Louisiana does not itself grant same-sex adoptions.

Last October I talked about Adar v. Smith, the Fifth Circuit case where a couple that went to New York to legally adopt a baby born in Louisiana couldn't get an updated birth certificate from Louisiana. Back then, Louisiana said it didn't have to recognize adoptions from other states that it wouldn't perform itself.

The Court today said otherwise. Here's a PDF of the unanimous opinion in favor of the gay couple.

Why is This Case Important?

Because it's about how the full faith and credit clause applies to gay rights. The full faith and credit clause is the part of the U.S. Constitution that makes one state recognize the judgments of another state.

Sound familiar? You often hear about how states that don't allow gay marriage should have to recognize gay marriages from states that do. Instead, states without gay marriage give a similar argument to the one Louisiana gave in Adar v. Smith--that they shouldn't have to recognize marriages that they themselves would not allow.

What Did the Court Say?

Here's why the Fifth Circuit said the full faith and credit clause makes Louisiana recognize the New York same sex adoption:

• First, it recognized that the Supreme Court has said that there are no "public policy exceptions" to the clause.
• Second, it disagreed with Louisiana's argument that adoption decrees are more like a statute than a judgment. Louisiana said that because the New York adoption decree represents New York public policy created by New York statutes, recognizing the adoption would be replacing Louisiana's policy with New York's.
• Instead, the court said that the birth certificate is required because it recognizes what New York has already done (the recognition required by the clause). It does not have to reflect would Louisiana would do on its own.

So what does this mean for gay marriage?

Not much. While the court says that domestic-law judgments must be given full faith and credit by other states, a marriage is not a judgment. Further, what gay marriage faces that gay adoption doesn't face is DOMA, a federal allow that says specifically that states don't have to recognize gay marriages from other states. Unless DOMA is repealed or is ruled to be unconstitutional, marriages from gay marriage states probably won't get recognized elsewhere.

Be sure to read the press release from Lambda Legal, which represented the two men.

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States Where Gay Marriage Is Allowed:

• Massachusetts (2004)
• Connecticut (2008)
• Iowa (2009)
• Vermont (2009)
• New Hampshire (2010)

Special Places:

• Washington, D.C. (Coming March 2010)
• California (only if the marriage happened before Proposition 8 was passed)

States Where Gay Marriages From Other Places Are Recognized:

• New York
• California (only if the marriage happened before Proposition 8 was passed)

For a more graphical representation of all this information, check out this interactive map by the Wall Street Journal.

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Many times when a law is passed it doesn’t take effect until later on. That’s the case with two laws granting more rights to California gay couples that the state passed last year: (1) the Marriage Recognition and Family Protection Act and (2) the LGBT Domestic Violence Programs Expansion Bill.

Dana Rudolph over at Mombian, a blog centered on LGBT parents, explained what the two laws do:

The Marriage Recognition and Family Protection Act, which states that same-sex couples married in any state or nation anytime before the passage of Proposition 8 must be recognized as married spouses in California. The new statute also confirms that same-sex couples married outside of California after November 5, 2008, must be given all of the rights, protections and responsibilities of married spouses under California law, with the sole exception of the designation of “marriage.”

The LGBT Domestic Violence Programs Expansion Bill, which expands access for LGBT service providers to a state fund within the California Emergency Management Agency, which supports LGBT-specific domestic violence programs across the state. The new law also allows for more than four organizations to apply for programmatic funding each fiscal cycle and eliminates the requirement for providers to offer shelter – impediments to many smaller LGBT organizations.

Hats off to Equality California for also summarizing the laws.

Because there’s so many gay couples living in California, the first law in particular grants substantially more rights. Same sex couples living in California that were married elsewhere, at any time, will be treated as married spouses by the state.

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Mexico City legalized gay marriage late last year, becoming the city in Latin America to do so.

Lots of gay couples near Canada already go there to get married. I expect same sex couples in southwestern states to head to Mexico for the same reason. But will their Mexico gay marriage be legally recognized when they come back?

It depends on where they live. If they're from one of the six jurisdictions that allow gay marriage--Iowa, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, D.C.--then their marriage from Mexico will be recognized. But if they're from one of those places, they probably aren't going to trek to Mexico to get married anyway.

The only other places that will recognize a gay marriage from Mexico City are California and New York, both of which passed laws last year to recognize same sex marriages from other jurisdictions.

New Yorkers live pretty far from Mexico, so I don't expect to see many of them head down to Mexico just to get married, especially when they live next door to three states that where they could do the same.

For Californians, on the other hand, Mexico City legalizing gay marriage means there's now a relatively easy way to get gay marriage rights. The combination of Mexico City's new gay marriage law and California's new recognition law means that all a gay couple in California has to do to get marriage rights is take a day trip to Mexico. Mexico City lets U.S. residents get married there as long as they bring the right paperwork.

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A lot happened in 2009 in gay couples law. Both on a state and national level, the year brought many changes, good and bad, for same sex relationships. Here's Part 1 of my list of the top 10 stories from 2009. 

10. Obama Extends Some Health Care, Other Benefits to Domestic Partners of Federal Employees

Under fire for not doing anything for the gay voting bloc that supported his election, Obama finally made his first overture by extending some benefits to federal employees. Still, the move was mostly political and didn’t substantially affect federal employee rights. For that, stay tuned next year on the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, which just got voted out of committee in Congress. 

9. Congress Amends the Hate Crimes Act to Include Sexual Orientation as Protected Class

While not specifically affecting gay couples rights, the amendment nevertheless was the first federal law that granted, instead of took away, gay rights. The move showed that Congress might further expand gay rights and eventually repeal DOMA. 

8. Colorado and Nevada Pass Limited Domestic Partnership Laws

Nevada became the 17th to recognize domestic partnerships. While it's not entirely everything-but-marriage, (the state doesn't make employers provide benefits to the domestic partners of employees, for example), the law does give domestic partners most of the benefits of legal spouses in the state. The legislature had to override the governor's veto to get the law through. Colorado, on the other hand, passed an even more limited law, granting gay couples some estate planning benefits. 

7. New York Senate Rejects Gay Marriage

Both the New York state assembly and the governor said gay couples should be able to get married. But in December the state senate said no. As New York has one of the highest gay populations in the country, gay marriage there would have been almost as important as marriage in California. 

6. D.C. Council Votes to Legalize Gay Marriages and Recognize Ones From Other States

Lots of people in D.C. are from somewhere else. That made the D.C. out-of-state gay marriage recognition law passed in May more important than those kind of laws usually are. But not content to let other jurisdictions have all the fun, the D.C. Council voted to legalize gay may marriages performed in the district too. We won’t see the outcome of this second law until next year after opponents of same sex marriage sue to block it.

Check back tomorrow for the top 5.

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Gay couples in New Jersey can form civil unions, but can't get married. This month, the state legislature debated, but didn't vote on, full marriage equality for same sex couples.

Because couples in that state can already form civil unions with the full rights of married couples, some wonder what letting them get married would even do.

The answer is that, when it comes to benefits, employers treat couples called "marriages" differently than couples called "civil unions. Steven Goldstein, CEO of New Jersey gay rights organization Garden State Equality, explained:

About half of all employers in New Jersey are self-insured and therefore fall out of the purview of state law, including the state’s civil union law. No state may penalize companies that comply with federal laws.

As a result, many self-insured employers in the state don't provide benefits to same sex partners of employees. But if New Jersey legalized gay marriage, employers would be more likely to provide these benefits. Steven talked about what happened it Massachussets, as an example:

In Massachusetts . . . the overwhelming majority of employers have chosen not to invoke the federal loophole. Employers there understand and respect the power of the word “marriage.” Without the term “civil union” to hide behind, Massachusetts employers are loathe to discriminate against their gay employees. They would have to admit the reason for their discrimination.

This difference in insurance benefits is not the only way that civil unions are different than marriages in terms of rights. I've talked before about other problems, especially regarding out-of-state recognition difficulties.

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There's been a lot of media attention on the recent failures to legalize gay marriage. First Maine voters rejected a marriage law, then the New York legislature did too. Now the media's talking about a vote for gay marriage in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, gay couples that aren't getting married are getting more rights. Ashley Surdin of the Washington Post noted how non-marriage legislation has consistently over the last few years granted gay couples more health, employment, and other state benefits. The article points out a few examples from just this year:

• A New York court upholding benefits to same sex spouses of employees married out-of-state.
• The Washington "everything but marriage" law.
• U.S. House approval of benefits for federal employees.
• California court rulings granting benefits to same sex spouses.

And the article doesn't even mention the many state court rulings recognizing gay custody, parental, and adoption rights.

Still, even in states with "everything but marriage" laws, the inability to get married means gay couples must continue to use nontraditional legal means to make up for the absence of federal marriage benefits.

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I've gotten a couple questions from people wondering about how the new Washington "everything but marriage" law that passed earlier this month will affect their insurance.

First, you won't need to get a new insurance policy. The law says how to interpret policies, not how policies have to be written. Insurance companies and the government must interpret the term "spouse" as applying equally to same sex domestic partners, even if the actual policy document says it means married opposite sex couples.

What if you're from another state? Fortunately, the law will cover domestic partners registered in other states. But probably not marriages. So domestic partners registered in Nevada, for example, will receive full benefits of the law, but couples married in Massachusetts will not. Just another reason why, when it comes to gay relationships, names are important.

People with their own insurance will benefit just as much as people who get their insurance from employers. For example, take two partners that are both self-employed, each with their own health insurance plans. Now, one person's insurance will extend benefits to his partner, saving thousands in premiums annually.

Finally, couples can feel safe that, if one person dies unexpectedly, her partner, and not her immediate family, will be recognized as the beneficiary of life insurance proceeds. Still, federal benefits such as social security are unaffected because the new law only concerns state rights.

To read more about the effect of the new law, take a look at the FAQ published by the Washington Office of the Insurance Commissioner.

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Folks who live in Maine might be thinking about getting married in Canada after their state voted down a law that would have allowed gay marriage. In fact, many U.S. gay residents go to Canada to take advantage of laws that have allowed gay marriage since 2005.

But they better hope they stay together. It's hard for same sex couples to get divorced after getting married in Canada.

While couples can easily go to Canada for a weekend and get married, the country has more strict requirements when its comes to divorce. The Canadian Divorce Act says that for a couple to get divorced in Canada, one person must have lived in the country for at least a year just before the divorce. Not surprisingly, people may not want to move to Canada for a year just so they can get divorced.

But staying home has its own problems. The reason a gay couple goes to Canada to get married in the first place is usually because their own state doesn't allow gay marriage. But if it doesn't allow gay marriage, it probably won't allow gay divorce either. So Maine residents who now go to Canada to get married, for example, won't be able to get divorced back in their home state.

Barbara Findlay, a family lawyer in Vancouver, summarized the situation in the latest issue of Lawyers Weekly:

So unless they happen to be very wealthy and have nothing better to do with their time than to hang out in Canada for a year, they really can’t get a divorce here. In other words, they are stuck in a divorce catch-22.

Couples married in Canada aren't completely out of luck because they can still go to one of the few states that allows gay marriage and divorce. But these states often have their own additional rules. Massachusetts, for example, also has a 1 year residency requirement similar to Canada's.

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Video conferencing and remote connection technologies could make it easier for same sex couples who live in states that don't allow gay marriage to get married in states that do.

Professors Adam Candeub and Mae Kuykendall, who run the E-Marriage Project over at Michigan State Law School, said in an article that couples shouldn't have to physically be in a state to get married under its laws. Instead, they should be allowed to use remote connection technologies to get married by proxy.

The professors note that states let out-of-state residents use their laws all the time. For example, people can form businesses in other states or write provisions that make another state's law govern a contract.

Even with marriage, states have previously let people get married without actually being there. A press release about the article explains:

The couple's physical presence within the particular state authorizing their marriage has never been a requirement the states must impose in order to marry couples. Couples have for centuries married by proxy, mail, and telephone. The military has for many years recognized such marriages as legal for purposes of spousal allowances and death benefits.

Would these marriages be recognized in the couples home state? Probably not, unless there's already a law recognizing out of state gay marriage.

But statistics show that same sex couples in states without gay marriage are willing to take advantage of states that do. For example, since Iowa legalized gay marriage, almost half of same sex marriages there have been for out-of-state residents.

Yet sometimes it's too inconvenient for a couple to get married under another state's laws. If states with gay marriage passed the laws suggested by the E-Marriage Project, then a couple in a state without gay marriage could more easily get an official stamp on their relationship, even if it's just symbolic.

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Rosie O'Donnell and Kelli Carpenter were one of the most famous married gay couples. But as of Tuesday, they are couples no more. Rosie and Kelli live in New York, but married in California.

Their split shows many of the issues that come up during a same sex divorce.

Getting Divorced

Only a few states and countries allow gay marriage. So a lot of couples take a trip to get married out of state and then go back to where they live.

But if their marriage doesn't work out, they may have trouble getting divorced.

As an example, Emma Ruby-Sachs, an attorney with Ruby & Shiller, writes at the Huffington Post about what would happen for a hypotethical Montana couple that goes to Toronto to get married:

As a resident of Montana, you cannot get a divorce in Toronto. Toronto, like most states with the exception of Nevada and a few others, has a year-long residency requirement for a divorce. In Montana, your relationship was never legally any different from two roommates. And so, you must complete a divorce, with all its entanglements and difficulties, without the assistance of the law.

Because Rosie and Kelli live in New York, they'll be able to get divorced. Though New York doesn't allow gay marriages, they do recognize them from other states for the purpose of getting divorced.

Custody and Visitation Issues

Rosie and Kelli have three adopted children and one child born to Kelli through sperm donation. If Rosie and Kelli had lived in a state that disallowed second parent adoption, only Kelli would have legal rights to the child she gave birth to.

Without being the legal parent, Rosie's visitation rights to Kelli's child would also depend on what state they lived in. In Montana, for example, the highest court

that non-legal parents do have visitation and decision rights to a child from a same sex relationship.

Alimony

When married straight couples get divorced, one person often has to give the other person spousal support payments. That way the person with less income doesn't suffer an immediate drop in lifestyle. Along with spousal support, the person with more income would also have to give child support if the other person keeps custody of any children.

But if a same sex couple can't get divorced, then the person with lower income will lose these legal protections. It's possible, for example, that someone who left their job to take care of the house and family will not get any help from their ex-partner to help maintain his or her lifestyle.

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A bill [PDF] to allow same sex marriage in Washington, D.C., was introduced to the D.C. Council last week. It's expected to pass.

As D.C. has one of the largest gay populations in the country [PDF], the bill affects many couples who couldn't marry before.

But the law has its drawbacks. While it allows gay marriage, it discontinues domestic partnership registrations. This discontinuance will create relationship recognition problems when these couples want to travel or move to another state.

Nancy Polikoff, professor at American University Law School, explains:

There are states that will recognize another state’s domestic partnership or civil union but will not recognize same-sex marriages. Eliminating domestic partnerships in DC leaves such couples more vulnerable, not less, in other parts of the country.

I've written before about how the name of a relationship affects the rights it confers, and it's even more important here. People living in D.C. tend to come from somewhere else. Depending on where they go, couples might rather have a domestic partnership than a marriage when they move out of the district. 

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Governor Schwarzenegger last night signed a law that makes California recognize gay marriages performed out of state.

All same sex couples married out of state at any time will have all the rights of married straight couples in the state. But the law tries to play it both ways when it comes to what to call these relationships.

Couples married before November 5, 2008 (the day Proposition 8 banned gay marriage in the state): they'll called spouses and their relationships will be called "marriages."

Couples married after November 5, 2008: they won't be called spouses and their relationship will be called "domestic partnerships."

What a mess!

Dan Smith reported this morning in the Sacramento Bee why the law treats out of state marriages differently based on when they took place:

In a signing message, Schwarzenegger said California will not recognize the couples as married but will "provide the same legal protections that would otherwise be available to couples that enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships out-of-state. In short, this measure honors the will of the People in enacting Proposition 8 while providing important protections to those unions legally entered into in other states."

Gay marriage law is already hard to understand because different states plus the federal government have differing laws covering same sex relationships. California's law now means that same sex couples may not even be governed the same within a single state.

Names are legally significant when it comes to same sex relationship rights. Don't be surprised if the set of rights that a California gay couple married out of state has depends on whether their relationship is actually called a marriage.

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The Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals this week heard arguments in a case about out of state recognition of gay adoptions.

The federal district court ruled in favor of the gay couple [PDF] late last year.

Two men jointly adopted in New York a baby born in Louisiana. But when they tried to get a new birth certificate in Louisiana, the state refused. Instead, the state said that it doesn't have to recognize adoptions from other states that it wouldn't allow itself. Because Louisiana doesn't allow joint gay adoptions, the state said the two men were out of luck.

In the meantime, some Louisiana lawmakers are trying to preempt a ruling that would make the state recognize gay adoptions from other states. Rep. Jonathan Perry introduced a bill that would make couples who adopt a Louisiana born child follow Louisiana law when it comes to birth certificates. The law hasn't yet passed.

Even if it does, it may not matter. Ken Upton of Lambda Legal, who is representing the two men, argued before the court that Louisiana must recognize the New York adoption because the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution should make the state respect judicial adoption decree from other states, including New York.

If the appeals court rules in favor of the two men based on this argument, then it won't matter if a Louisiana state law says otherwise. The federal law will trump.

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Married gay couples often worry about whether they can keep their marriage benefits when they travel or move to another state. They are smart to worry, because out of state gay marriage recognition is uncommon.

But here the law can help. Nancy Van Tine, a Massachusetts attorney with over 30 years of domestic relations experience, discussed in the July issue of Boston Spirit magazine [PDF] how married gay couples with proper planning can keep their benefits across states:

A prenuptial agreement can make gay marriage portable state to state. . . . A prenuptial agreement can contemplate these additional tax burdens [from the effects of DOMA] on a payor and help couples plan accordingly. A prenuptial agreement is also extremely important because the federal government will not recognize a same-sex partner as the recipient of retirement and pension benefits under ERISA and other federal laws governing benefits. A prenuptial agreement is the best instrument to plan for the property, tax and benefit issues arising out of the federal government's decision to deny same-sex marriages.

For straight couples, just a single marriage certificate makes automatic the many benefits given to them in all states. While gay couples can't get these benefits so easily, prenuptial agreements help simulate many of the same effects.

They aren't just for married gay couples either. Often same sex couples have to settle for whatever their state offers. Written agreements about property and income still lets these couples operate more like marriages.

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Nevada gay couples can take advantage of the state's domestic partnership law next week on October 1. The new law gives couples everything-but-marriage partnerships, just like the law that Washington State recently passed.

But they shouldn't plan on traveling. At least, if they want to keep their domestic partnership benefits. Mike Blasky of the Las Vegas Review-Journal explained:

[A]lthough domestic partnerships will be recognized in Nevada, they might not be recognized in states without domestic partner laws — or by the federal government. . .Other states don’t have to recognize it.

I'd use a stronger word than "might." It's very unlikely. And it all has to do with terminology.

When it comes to out of state recognition of gay relationships, words are important. States with gay marriage will recognize other gay marriages, but not usually civil unions or domestic partnerships. Similarly, states with everything-but-marriage domestic partnerships will usually not recognize marriages or domestic partnerships from other states.

You would think that a state would recognize legal relationships from other states that give the same or less rights. But they don't.

I think the tendency to not recognize other state's relationships, outside of marriage states recognizing other state's marriages, is because of the sheer variety of gay relationship laws. In some states, like Nevada and Washington, a domestic partnership gives full marital rights. In other states, like Wisconsin, a domestic partnership gives far less.

As long as different states offer different bundles of rights all called "domestic partnerships," it will hard for states to recognize these relationships from other states. Out of state recognition of gay relationships may therefore always be limited to marriage.

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Same sex marriage in Iowa became legal in April. But since then, half of these marriages have been by out-of-state residents, the Associated Press reported on Sunday:

[S]tate data show about 45 percent of Iowa's same-sex marriages were between out-of-state couples.

Of the 676 same-sex couples, 312 couples weren't from Iowa. They were from neighboring states.

Data show 57 couples were from Illinois, 38 were from Nebraska, 37 were from Missouri and 36 were from Minnesota.

So gay couples from other states have been going to Iowa to get married. But when they come back home, their marriages will have no legal status whatsoever. Their certificates will be just pieces of paper to hang on the wall.

So why do they do it? 

Perhaps these couples anticipate that their home states will one day pass out-of-state recognition laws. It's certainly easier for a state government to pass these kinds of laws than granting full marriage rights. See New York and D.C., for example.

But I don't think that's the reason. Instead, I think getting married gives couples a feeling of legitimacy and comfort that has nothing to do with the legal rights effects of marriage.

Take a look at what happened in California when gay marriage was briefly legalized. Thousands of gay couples got married, even though domestic partnership laws in the state already granted them all the legal rights of marriage. They had their rights, but they got married anyway.

The same is probably true for couples now flocking to Iowa and other gay marriage states. It's just another reason why "everything but marriage" laws, while a good substitute on paper, do not actually give gay couples the same benefits.

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Daniel Clement, a divorce attorney that has practiced law for over 20 years, wrote about an upcoming New York law that prevents someone getting a divorce from financially sabotaging the soon-to-be ex-spouse:

In the past, many matrimonial actions got off to a particularly acrimonious start because one spouse was fearful that the other would transfer and hide assets, cancel insurance and run up debts as soon as they received notice of the divorce. As a result, one party had to go to the expense of making a motion to obtain an injunction preventing to the other spouse from acting financially irresponsibly. . . .

[The] new law makes the motion unnecessary. The law automatically enjoins parties from transferring property, relocating children, secreting assets, canceling insurance or running up debts.

So what will this mean for New York gay couples? Couples in a domestic partnership or civil union are out of luck. The automatic stay law will only apply to matrimonial actions:

• marriage annulments
• divorces
• separations
• declarations that a marriage is void
• proceedings about distribution of marital property after an out-of-state divorce

Not included: domestic partnership and civil union dissolutions.

However, the law will probably affect married gay couples getting a divorce. While New York doesn't offer gay marriage directly, the state does recognize marriages performed out of state. And just this year, a New York court granted a same sex divorce of a couple married somewhere else.

If gay couples married out of state can continue to get divorced in New York, the automatic stay law will apply to them. Their divorces will be matrimonial actions.

Daniel thinks that the benefits of the automatic stay law include "lowering the costs of litigation, protecting the parties, while lowering level of animosity." It's good to know that these benefits will help gay couples too.

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When it comes to out of state recognition of same sex relationships, names are important. Laws that recognize out of state "gay marriage" do not necessarily also recognize "civil unions" and "domestic partnerships."

Even when these unions and partnerships give gay couples everything but marriage in name, they are still at risk of non-recognition from other states because they are called something else.

Joanna Grossman, a law professor at Hofstra Law School, explains what can happen with out of state recognition laws:

Even within the few jurisdictions that do or may recognize same-sex marriages, many same-sex couples will find themselves unprotected. New York's broad pro-recognition stance, for example, does not apply to other statuses like civil unions.

As a result, New York granted recognition of a Canadian gay marriage, but denied recognition of a Vermont civil union. The fact that Vermont civil unions provide the same rights as marriage does didn't matter because the relationship was not called a "marriage."

Even in Washington, D.C., the most recent place to pass a recognition law, civil unions and domestic partnerships from one of the many states that offer them will probably not be recognized.

These conflicts over names show that providing gay couples with the same rights as married couples, but not the marriage name, does not really give them the same benefits. Married opposite-sex couples have no problems with out of state recognition. But gay couples in an "everything but marriage" domestic partnership or civil union may have to leave their rights at home.

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