Rose and Joe live in Evans, Washington, a tiny community on the edge of the Lake Roosevelt in the farthest northeast corner of the state. Rose has a rare autoimmune disease and relies on Medicaid to help pay for the medications she needs. If she and Joe were to marry, she would lose this health care coverage. Their domestic partnership allows Joe to be with Rose during her frequent hospitalizations, and also gives him the ability to help make medical decisions if she is unconscious.

Penny and Karen live in West Seattle with their son Calder. Both Penny and Karen are firefighters and, having seen colleagues seriously injured on the job, they know how dangerous their work can sometimes be. Knowing they have domestic partnership protections helps ease the fear, guaranteeing that if one of them were to be injured on the job, the other partner would have hospital visitation rights and would receive support from the fire department.

It’s hard not to be moved to support domestic partnerships when you hear Rose and Joe, a straight senior couple who live in the far northeast part of the state, talk about how their domestic partnership helps them cope with Rose’s medical issues. It’s hard to question the service gay and lesbian couples provide to our communities when you listen to Cindy and Janet talk about the six kids they adopted from foster care. And I challenge you not to cry when you hear Cathlin and her partner Avril speak about the uncertainties they face with Cathlin’s cancer treatments.

The purpose of this chapter is to tell you about the most common arguments against domestic partnership policies, and the best answers to them.