Top 25 Rights and Responsiblities

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Some of the legal rights and responsibilities of same-sex couples who enter into a domestic partnership

Without access to the status of marriage, same-sex couples are excluded from important protections and responsibilities that allow them to care for one another and their family every day and in times of crisis. Only a handful can be bought through contracts and legal agreements.

House Bill 2007 – the Oregon Family Fairness Act – made available to same-sex couples the more than 500 rights and responsibilities available through marriage to opposite sex couples under state law. Here are twenty-five of them:

1. Automatic right to make health care decisions for partner
2. Automatic right to visit partner in the hospital
3. Right to sue for wrongful death if partner negligently killed
4. Preference to be appointed personal representative of deceased partner’s estate
5. Right to continue to live in the deceased partner’s home for one year after partner’s death
6. Right to support from deceased partner’s estate
7. Right to demand one-quarter share of partner’s estate if will leaves less than that
8. Right to private visits in long-term care facility
9. Right to share a room in long-term care facility
10. Right to file joint state tax returns
11. Automatically an “authorized driver” on partner’s rental car
12. Automotive personal injury protection benefits for partner
13. Automatic right to obtain life insurance on partner
14. Uninsured motorist insurance coverage for partner
15. Protection for partner’s home in bankruptcy
16. Private conversations with partner are protected in court
17. Conversations with a marriage counselor are protected in court
18. Automatic assumed parentage for children
19. Need not testify against partner in a court case
20. Right as a partner to a landowner to obtain a “landowner preference tag” for hunting from the Fish & Wildlife Commission
21. Right to receive personal effects from deceased partner’s body
22. Automatic right of survivorship for jointly owned real property
23. Right to workers’ compensation benefits if partner disabled or killed on the job
24. Right to receive deceased partner’s unemployment benefits
25. Protection through emergency court orders in case of divorce

Read more about the new law here.