ooo ooo, I found my next article, and it's a doozy.
University of Florida is modifying the domestic partnership clause to require partners to swear they've been having sex for over a year and explicitly excludes platonic relationships.
So much for my idea of exploiting loopholes in something I disagreed with.
Some wags have suggested that some married couples can't meet that requirement.
Companies and organizations are in a bind. Here is where, classically, the state steps in to define something common for everyone, so that companies can simply use the state definitions and not rely on rolling their own. In other words, it would be so much easier for them if every state had civil unions. Instead they have to police people's sex lives. Unfortunately this may prove to be an impetus to civil unions. Lack of civil unions is certainly not stopping companies from offering such benefits.
I find it a little strange that they would be as zealous as they are about excluding platonic relationships. After all, that's a benefit that can attract people. You may reply, well, they want to save money. Well if they wanted to save money, why are they offering domestic partnership benefits? To which you might reply, because it attracts people, and my retort would be, we're back at the beginning, offering benefits to platonic partners attracts people, too. What is it about people having sex that they want to provide benefits to? In the traditional marriage situation, you had one breadwinner who needed coverage for a dependent spouse and dependent children. Clearly a need there. What is the compelling need for two working people having sex without kids to have benefits over two people (one of whom may not be able to work) not having sex without kids? In all this rush to redefine family, why aren't we open to platonic families?
I guess another question is how often domestic partner agreements exclude family members from domestic partnership. (Of course, this cruelly discriminates against incestuous relationships, but I digress.)
Should be interesting to see if and when polyamory becomes part of company policies. I suspect it won't since there is no evidence polyamory will gain the traction domestic partnership has, and it would be prohibitively costly for employers to cover multiple partners. But it's fun to throw it out.
I would love to see a sharp lawyer go to court and claim discrimination if two sisters living together--in a non-lesbian, non-sexually active relationship--were turned down for coverage granted to sexually active homosexuals., This whole situation is so ridiculous it shows that whole societies can embrace some of the most ludicrous or evil(Nazi Germany-Master Race) ideas. Ideas that are promulgated from above-by courts, universities, or corrupt science-- so that what is virtual insanity becomes "conventional wisdom" and those who belong in the strait jackets treat rational and normal people as if they were the insane ones. In otherwords --how do you act in or respond to a society where those who should be institutionalized run society's institutions and say what all crazy people say: "I'm not crazy--you are."