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Rating: 
Summary: Priority Book
Review: As Same-sex Marriages and Holy Unions are becoming more popular in the US, same-sex couples need a valuable source of information for their journey into the lagal world where lifelong partners are considered "legal strangers" in the eyes of the law. This book IS that source. A priority purchase for any same-sex "married" couple
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Summary: Stand up!
Review: Great reference for all of us to stand up for the right to be who we are.
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Summary: Get's an A+
Review: If you have a college degree, good income, own a home, and prefer a do-it-yourself explanation, this is the book for you. It is written by laywers and describes partnership situations in detail with legal/financial tools to apply. In some cases, it gets down to state by state specifics (Vermont's same-sex law, Hawaii's beneficiary law, etc). It deals with houses & other property, stocks & bank accounts, wills & inheritance, children, prior marriages, and even breaking up.If you are still 'building your credit history' or want to learn about 'life insurance policies', then buy one of the simpler books. If you are an educated anal-rententive meticulously detail-oriented gay adult, then this is the book for you. You can skip the others.
Rating:
Summary: Get's an A+
Review: If you have a college degree, good income, own a home, and prefer a do-it-yourself explanation, this is the book for you. It is written by laywers and describes partnership situations in detail with legal/financial tools to apply. In some cases, it gets down to state by state specifics (Vermont's same-sex law, Hawaii's beneficiary law, etc). It deals with houses & other property, stocks & bank accounts, wills & inheritance, children, prior marriages, and even breaking up. If you are still 'building your credit history' or want to learn about 'life insurance policies', then buy one of the simpler books. If you are an educated anal-rententive meticulously detail-oriented gay adult, then this is the book for you. You can skip the others.
Rating: 
Summary: Excerpt from the introduction:
Review: This book is designed to help lesbian and gay couples understand the laws that affect them and to take charge of the legal aspects of their lives. Much of the material covered can also be very useful for lesbians and gays who aren't in a couple. Many of the legal consequences of "coupling" are immediately apparent, but many others don't surface until times of stress: misunderstanding, separation or death. Married couples' relationships are defined by law; lesbian and gay couples, as of January 1996, can't legally marry. This discrimination can mean, among other things, higher estate tax rates and insurance payments, the unavailability of marriage discount prices or memberships, and significant obstacles in adopting, but it also allows lesbian and gay couples the freedom to create their own legal relationships. This is an optimistic book. Our purpose is to explain your legal alternatives and show you how to use them to contribute to a harmonious and productive life together. We feel strongly that discussing and planning the financial, practical and legal aspects of a relationship leads to greater understanding and trust. It's possible to use the law in a positive, conflict-avoiding way. Unfortunately, however, there's also a less happy theme to this book: failure to work out your legal relationship with each other can lead to surprising, and dire, consequences. We've heard too many horror stories not to warn you. This is also a practical book. We supply sample form legal documents such as living together agreements, durable powers of attorney, wills, parenting agreements and the like so you can design and prepare your own documents. We focus on the nitty-gritty of daily life; we spend little time discussing broader political concerns, such as the essential struggle of lesbians and gays to remove prejudice from the laws and culture of America. One of the happiest results of this struggle is that it is now matter-of-fact that many thousands of lesbians and gay men live together as couples in pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. ...Most lesbian and gay people we know are wary of "the law," even if they're lawyers themselves, and for good reason. For eons, the law has been a force for oppression. The litany of codified homophobia includes sodomy laws, loitering laws, exclusion from the military, prohibitions against child custody-the list goes on and on. In addition, the law has permitted-and in some cases even encouraged-many other types of oppression, such as job and housing discrimination, and police entrapment. Obviously, a legal system that makes people criminals because of sexual orientation doesn't engender trust. ...The law tends to be cumbersome,time-consuming, expensive and incredibly picky. As you'll see throughout this book, we urge you to avoid courts and litigation if at all possible. But avoiding lawsuits doesn't mean you can avoid the legal system altogether. The fact that lesbian and gay couples are no longer in the closet and live together openly necessarily brings them into contact with the meshes of the law...What we can tell you generally is that the opportunities for legal hassles to intrude into a couple's life are endless, and the best way to avoid entanglements with the law is to take matters into your own hands
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Summary: A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples (Legal Guide for L
Review: This guide has been highly resourceful in the lives of my partner and I. There is not a day that goes by that we do not reference it. It is written in a very easy to understand format and contains several templates for "Durable Power of Attorneys", etc. I highly recommend this book. Anyone interested in emailing me.
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