S.F. City Hall Examiner: Domestic Partnership vs. Marriage and Board Preview
For starters, you should know that
federal law recognizes only marriage between a man and a woman. It doesnt matter if two people are married, domestic partners or
Facebook friends in the state of California, if both people can safely use the same dressing room at Wal-Mart, they arent a couple for the purposes of federal benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and federal taxes.
To register as domestic partners, both persons must be at least 18 years old and share a residence. (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 297(b)(1), (4).) Marriage has no cohabitation requirement and persons younger than 18 can be married so long as they get a court order. (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 302, 303.) So, if you have a 16-year-old pen pal in Fresno, marriage is the better choice. And also: good luck with all that.
Establishing domestic partnership is much easier than marriage. To get married, a couple must go to the county clerk, obtain a license and certificate of registry, have the union solemnized and return the documents to the clerk, who keeps the license and a copy of the certificate and sends the original certificate to the State Registrar of Vital Statistics. (Cal. Fam. Code secs.
306,
359; Cal.
Health & Saf. Code secs. 102285, 102330, 102355.) To become domestic partners, a couple need only file a Declaration of Domestic Partnership with the secretary of state, who adds it to a statewide database. (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 298.5(a), (b).) Its harder to redeem frequent-flier miles than to register as domestic partners.
On the other hand, where one or both people in a relationship believe in good faith that they are married, but for some reason the marriage is void, the couple may still be treated as married this is referred to as the
putative spouse doctrine. At least one appellate court has held that, but there is no such thing as putative domestic partner be careful with that paperwork, partners. (
Velez v. Smith, 142 Cal. App. 4th 1154 (2006)
Download velez_case.rtf.)
Getting out of a domestic partnership is a little easier than marriage, too. Both parties need not live in California to end a California-registered domestic partnership (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 299(d)), but to get a divorce in California at least one of the married people has to live here for six months and have lived in the county where they are filing for divorce for at least three months. (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 2320.)
Under certain circumstances, a couple can end their domestic partnership by jointly filing a Notice of Termination of Domestic Partnership with the secretary of state. (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 299(a)-(c).) Under the same circumstances, a married couple has to file a joint petition in court and wait for a judge to grant the divorce.(
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 2400 et seq.)
Also, couples may designate their marriage certificate and date of marriage as confidential so the information is not available to the public. (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 500 et seq.) There is no such process for domestic partners.
The final difference is this: While straight couples 62 years and older may register as domestic partners (to preserve their single-status Social Security benefits), heterosexuals are otherwise ineligible to register as domestic partners under state law. (
Cal. Fam. Code sec. 297(b)(5)(A),(B).) Given the administrative ease of dealing with domestic partnerships, I wonder if straight couples will step up and demand equal rights or choose to bask in the rare glow of hetero discrimination.