I want to try to confirm something I thought I heard on the radio today.

It is my understanding that the Virginia has enacted a law that makes all legal agreements between the partners of a same sex couple null and void.

This would include every thing from civil unions, to Powers of Attorney, Wills - ANY legal document involving the partners of a same sex couple.

Linda and I have both Powers of Attorney involving our finances and a Medical. We also have wills for each other and our children.

If what I heard is true then we have no legal standing what so ever!

As anyone else heard this?

Patti

Those of us in Virginia, as you can see from first post that some new laws have passed in the CommunistWealth of Virginia and took effect on July 1, 2004. :angry:

What I had been told is correct!!

Same sex couple are now barred from the following:

1. Same sex marriages - so what else is new there;

2. this law will also invalidate Powers of Attorney, Specific, General, and medical, that we used to give same sex couples the same rights to make legal decisions for their partners that is given to a married heterosexual couple.

3. it would also invalidate custody agreements between same sex couples regarding their children, wills, as well as medical directives.

Now, as has been noted in the local media this law has serious constitutional flaws, in it, and judging by earlier Supreme Court decisions on matters regarding the rights of same sex couples - if a case on point reaches the Supremes - this law should be ruled unconstitutional. However, who knows, till it happens!

Wonderful Virginia - home of the men who wrote the Constitution!

I often wonder what the Founding Fathers would think of their country now - would they be proud of it - or would they be crying for a repeat of 1776?

Patti

Could you possibly manuver around those laws. What I am thinking as far as your children, for example is giving joint custody to Patti/Linda and a trusted male family member/friend whom (off the record) has agreed to turn sole custody over to Patti/Linda. As to the will maybe if you word it as going to your "life long friend" as opposed to "life partner", you could get by.


Personally I think the state of Virginia needs to pullit's head out.

Patti - I just find this so completely silly in essence... imagine this situation. I have a great friend that has no family. We are not emotionally or sexually attached in any shape or fashion. We are friends in a 'heterosexual' sense. This friend wants to give me POA over his estate and his living will names me to make decisions for him if he is unable. How can any court take that right of mine away to legally give another the right to act on my behalf. Does this mean that all POA's that are not legally held between legally married heterosexual couples are now void too? This is bogus. This cannot be unless the government is now going to visit the bedrooms of everyone that has a power of atty and is not married as a hetero couple...

Unbelievable!

Teb,

I have wondered the same thing, when I was still fighting cancer, I had given a friend a medical POA, I would think that it would now be void, I am also worried about the POA that Linda now holds for decisions on the house, my health, etc.

I think this is going to be a interesting battle in the courts, once such a case is brought to them. I don't see how this law could be enforced, but Virginia has some strange laws and has been able to enforce them.

Patti

A POA has NOTHING to do with what does or does not go on in the bedroom! NOTHING! This idea is as queer as a three dollar bill!

Teb,

You and I both know that, but as Linda keeps reminding me, we live right in the heart of the Bible belt, oh heck, we pass Regent University every morning on the way to work. Regent University is owned, operated by Pat Robertson and his bunch, along with Christian Broadcasting Network, etc., so we get a lot of stupid laws down here that are pushed in by the more activist Christians groups.

And before anyone gets offended, I am not insulting Christians, after all I am Catholic, and my on church does not accept our lifestyle.

Patti

I read all the threads here, and let me say this. I do understand what your saying. I too have a significant other. And in that, concern myself with the legal aspects of the infamous laws here in the wonderful "COMMONWEALTH" state of virginia. Yeah right. Thank god I'm not staying here.

I do not understand how they can uphold these laws. I mean, if a man and woman can exchange POA, envoke wills and trusts, and not be married, then how can they impose such ridiculous laws on gay and lesbian couples? It is two adults regardless, who want someone to look out for their best interest. It doesn't have anything to do with teir lifestyle, but as two adults. What do you think?

Alas, all you have heard is true, and probably worse. It was passed over the objection of the Governor. It even prohibits private companies from granting medical and insurance benefits to unmarried partners, and declares that any such contracts or agreements made in a another state shall be held null and void in Virginia.. The text that follows is a report in this new law printed in the Washington Post.

About the best one can say about this is that it is so extreme that it probably will not meet the constitutional smell test.

It does highlight one of the pitfalls of any contracts written in any state: you must be very careful that they hold up in another state. Suppose, for example, you had a contract with your partner written in Maryland. Subsequently, you have a falling out, and your ex-partner wants to void the contract. All he or she has to do now is move to Virginia. But, the fact of the matter is that MANY states would have provided sufficient loopholes because of the wordings of their respective laws. You must be very very careful.

FROM THE POST:

Virginia's New Jim Crow
By Jonathan Rauch
Sunday, June 13, 2004; Page B07



On July 1 Virginia takes a big step backward, into the shadow of Jim Crow.



I do not write those words lightly or rhetorically. Although I'm an advocate of same-sex marriage, I have taken care not to throw around motive-impugning words such as bigotry, hate or homophobia. I have worked hard to avoid facile comparisons between the struggle for gay marriage and the struggle for civil rights for African Americans; the similarities are real, but so are the differences.

Above all, I have been careful to distinguish between animus against gay people and opposition to same-sex marriage. No doubt the two often conjoin. But millions of Americans bear no ill will toward their gay and lesbian fellow citizens, yet still draw back from changing the boundaries of society's most fundamental institution. The ban on gay marriage in 49 states (Massachusetts, of course, being the newly minted exception) may well be unfair and unwise, as I believe it to be. Yet people of good conscience can maintain that although all individuals are equal, all couples are not.

If I seem to be splitting hairs, that is because Virginia -- where my partner and I make our home -- is not splitting hairs. It has instead taken a baseball bat to civic equality, thanks to the so-called Marriage Affirmation Act.

The act -- really an amendment to an earlier law -- was passed in April, over Gov. Mark R. Warner's objections, and it takes effect July 1. It says, "A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges and obligations of marriage is prohibited." It goes on to add that any such union, contract or arrangement entered into in any other state, "and any contractual rights created thereby," are "void and unenforceable in Virginia."

When gay marriage came up, Virginia was among the first states to preemptively ban it, in 1997. Moreover, Virginia is the only state to forbid even private companies, unless self-insured, from extending health insurance benefits to unmarried couples. That provision affects cohabiting straights but works a far greater hardship on gay couples, who cannot marry.

Those steps, however, impinge on the power of third parties (corporations and the government) to recognize gay couples. In the Marriage Affirmation Act, Virginia appears to abridge gay individuals' right to enter into private contracts with each other. On its face, the law could interfere with wills, medical directives, powers of attorney, child custody and property arrangements, even perhaps joint bank accounts. If a gay Californian was hit by a bus in Arlington, her medical power of attorney might be worthless there. "Sorry," the hospital might have to say to her frantic partner, "your contract means nothing here. Now leave before we call security."

Some of the law's sponsors have denied intending such a draconian result, and courts may interpret the text's vague and peculiar language more narrowly. Nonetheless, the law as written is a threat to all Virginians and indeed to all Americans, gay and straight alike.

Before Thomas Jefferson substituted the timeless phrase "pursuit of happiness," the founding fathers held that mankind's unalienable entitlements were to life, liberty and property. By "property" they meant not just material possessions but what we call autonomy. "Every man has a property in his own person," John Locke said.

It is by entering into contracts that we bind ourselves to each other. Without the right of contract, participation in economic and social life is impossible; thus is that right enshrined in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution. Slaves could not enter into contracts because they were the property of others rather than themselves; nor could children, who were wards of their parents. To be barred from contract, the founders understood, is to lose ownership of oneself.

To abridge the right of contract for same-sex partners, then, is to deny not just gay coupledom, in the law's eyes, but gay personhood. It disenfranchises gay people as individuals. It makes us nonpersons, subcitizens. By stripping us of our bonds to each other, it strips us even of ownership of ourselves.

Americans have a name for the use of law in this fashion, and that name is Jim Crow. It is not a name much called for anymore, but the Marriage Affirmation Act -- could that name be any more inapt? -- is the genuine article.

The law may be found unconstitutional or narrowed through interpretation, but judicial review could take years. Far better, in any case, would be for the legislature to salvage its good name by repudiating and repealing the law.

The legislature needs some help in recognizing its error. Dyana Mason of Equality Virginia, a gay advocacy group, notes that the new ban is beginning to attract some outside notice. A nascent movement to boycott Virginia has formed. A few newspapers, including this one, have editorialized against the law.

That is a start. But when Rhea County, Tenn., tried to ban gays from living there, it became a national laughingstock and hastily backed down.

Obstructing gay couples' private contracts is no less vindictive and abusive, and it deserves the same nationwide opprobrium -- especially among conservatives who distinguish between denying marriage to gay couples and denying civil rights to gay individuals. If Virginia's attack on basic legal equality does not offend and embarrass conservatives, what anti-gay measure possibly could? And if this law is not snuffed out, what might be next?

Jonathan Rauch, a writer in residence at the Brookings Institution, is the author of "Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America."

This is the central clause of the new law HB 751 (http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?041+ful+HB751S1):

A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited. Any such civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement entered into by persons of the same sex in another state or jurisdiction shall be void in all respects in Virginia and any contractual rights created thereby shall be void and unenforceable.This law can be interpetted to mean that ANY contract between same sex couple is prohibited and those from other states held invalid. The law can also be interpretted LESS harshly, of course, but the purpose of contracts is NOT to provide a legal framework for agreeable parties, but for circumstance in which they disagree.

While I am not a lawyer myself, it is easy to see that one thing that MUST be done is to provide, in any contract that happens to be between homsexuals, justification for the contract that makes it clear that the contract does not exist as an alternative to marriage. I.e., provide rational for the contract with is not "couple-based". Cite a long term friendship and knowledge that the person is honest and trustworthy, or good with business matters, or knowledgable of your medical needs, etc.....

in va, same sex relationships are basicaly tabboo, though you can get around these laws by useing a business type agreement. lisa