This article is part of a package on rethinking marriage. For more read …or is it?—testimonials and portraits from same-sex couples denied the benefits of marriage.

A consumer of current news might imagine that access to same-sex marriage is the most contested issue in contemporary family policy, and that marriage is the only cure for the disadvantages lesbian and gay families face. Both of these observations would be wrong. The most contested issue in contemporary family policy is whether married-couple families should have “special rights” not available to other family forms. Excluded families include unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended-family units, and any other constellation of individuals who form relationships of emotional and economic interdependence that do not conform to the one-size-fits-all marriage model. No other Western country, including those that allow same-sex couples to marry, creates the rigid dividing line between the law for the married and the law for the unmarried that exists in the United States.

I propose family law reform that would recognize all families’ worth. Marriage as a family form is not more important or more valuable than other forms of family, so the law should not give it more value. Couples should have the choice to marry based on the spiritual, cultural, or religious meaning of marriage in their lives; they should never have to marry to reap specific and unique legal benefits. I support the right to marry for same-sex couples as a matter of civil rights law. But I oppose discrimination against couples who do not marry, and I advocate solutions to the needs all families have for economic well-being, legal recognition, emotional peace of mind, and community respect.

 

Bonnie Cord graduated from law school and began working at a government agency. She bought a home with her male partner in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. When she applied to take the Virginia bar exam—a test necessary to obtain the right to practice law in the state—a judge ruled that her unmarried cohabitation made her morally unfit to do so.

Catrina Graves was driving her car behind a motorcycle driven by Brett Ennis, the man with whom she had been living for seven years. A car failed to stop at a stop sign and hit Brett’s motorcycle; Brett was thrown onto the pavement. Catrina saw the accident, stopped her car, and ran to Brett, who had suffered trauma to his head and was bleeding from the mouth. He died the next day. When Catrina sued the driver for negligent infliction of emotional distress, the court dismissed her lawsuit because she was not related to Brett by blood or marriage.

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving had lived together for 13 years when they bought a five-bedroom home in Black Jack, Missouri. They moved in with their two children and a third child from Olivia’s previous relationship. The city denied them an occupancy permit because its zoning laws prohibit more than three people unrelated by blood, marriage, or adoption from living together.