Uniting and Dividing

Many LGBT residents of New Hampshire are starting the new year off right by uniting under the state’s new civil union law. The Granite State is the first to pass the law without legal challenge, as Seacoast Online notes. That’s progress, much as many of us still hope for full marriage. All of New England now has some form of relationship recognition for same-sex couples, except for Rhode Island. The Ocean State, while not explicitly forbidding same-sex marriage, nevertheless has refused to grant a divorce to two residents who were married in neighboring Massachusetts. It is also still unclear how the other states will recognize each others’ couples, with marriage in Massachusetts, civil unions in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and domestic partnerships in Maine. A rose by any other name creates confusion, methinks.

The Washington Post today has a good article on the intricacies of same-sex divorce, whatever the relationship is called. It includes details I haven’t thought about (a good sign for my own relationship, I think) like the fact that opposite-sex couples can claim a federal tax deduction for alimony payments, whereas same-sex ones can’t. Opposite-sex couples who divorce can also easily split retirement savings and pension plans, while same-sex couples must cash them out and pay the tax penalty. (Couples can, of course, agree that each person keeps her or his own retirement funds—but this gets trickier for couples with children if one has abandoned paying work in order to stay home with the kids.) The article also advises couples with kids to make sure the non-biological parent adopts, not only to protect her or his parental rights during the relationship, but in case of divorce. That may be obvious to most of us—but the rest of the article goes into more depth on the financial ins and outs than most mainstream coverage. Worth a read.

There are lots of other articles right now on the New Hampshire civil unions; here’s one featuring two lesbian moms and their cute kids.

(Thanks to PageOneQ for the links.)