California's Domestic Partnerships Afford Many Rights of Marriage, But Not All

In California, a domestic partnership is a legal relationship available to same-sex couples and, in some circumstances, opposite-sex couples in which at least one party is 62 years of age or older. Domestic partnerships were enacted in 1999, and California's domestic partnership registry was the first of its kind in the US created by a legislature without court intervention.

A domestic partnership affords couples many of the same rights and protections as married couples, but not all. Domestic partnerships originally enjoyed far fewer privileges, restricted mainly to hospital visitation rights and the right to be claimed as a next of kin of the estate of a deceased partner. Rights have been expanded to include many of the rights and responsibilities common to marriage.

Though the program is widely supported in California, groups opposed to same-se marriage challenge the expansion of domestic partnerships, and proponents of same-sex marriage assert that anything less than full marriage rights are no different than the "separate but equal" racial laws of the Jim Crow era.

To learn more about domestic partnerships and the ways in which partnerships differ from marriages in California, find a family law attorney today.