New York Times editorial: Legal Convolutions for Gay Couples

The New York Times
March 24, 2007
Editorial
Legal Convolutions for Gay Couples

One consequence of denying gay couples the right to marry is that it forces people to resort to legal convolutions to protect their family’s financial interests. This problem is currently at the center of an intriguing lawsuit involving Olive Watson, a granddaughter of Thomas Watson Sr., the founder of I.B.M., and Patricia Ann Spado, her former lesbian partner of 14 years.

Sixteen years ago, when she was 43, Ms. Watson adopted Ms. Spado, then 44, under a Maine law that allows one adult to adopt another. The purpose was to allow Ms. Spado to qualify as an heir to Ms. Watson’s estate. It was a legal path used over the years by an untold number of same-sex couples who had been denied a straightforward way to establish inheritance rights through marriage.

Less than a year after the adoption, the pair broke up. Ms. Spado has filed a claim seeking to inherit a share of Mr. Watson’s estate, contending that her adoption technically makes her one of Mr. Watson’s grandchildren.

As Pam Belluck, Alison Leigh Cowan and Ariel Sabar reported in The Times, Watson trust lawyers are pursuing a variety of tactics to defeat Ms. Spado’s claim, including trying to annul the adoption on the grounds that the law was not intended for same-sex partners. Ms. Spado convincingly argues that an annulment would leave other adoptions on shaky ground, and that the “courts cannot unravel longstanding judgments based on third-party aversions to personal lifestyles.”

While the outcome is hard to predict, the lesson is clear: gay people who want to protect their families should not have to resort to adult adoptions. Nor should they be confined to separate and unequal new legal regimes, like civil unions, or rely on a patchwork of contracts, some of dubious enforceability. One benefit that comes with marriage is a universally understood framework for formally dissolving relationships and settling financial matters.

Connecticut’s legislators are about to consider a proposal to upgrade their state’s civil union law to allow full-blown marriage rights for gay couples. For practicality and fairness, it’s the right move.