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Full-Text Articles in Law
Deprivative Recognition, Erez Aloni
Deprivative Recognition, Erez Aloni
Erez Aloni
Family law is now replete with proposals advocating for the legal recognition of nonmarital relationships: those between friends, relatives, unmarried intimate partners, and the like. The presumption underlying these proposals is that legal recognition is financially beneficial to partners. This assumption is sometimes wrong: Legal recognition of relationships can be harmful to unmarried partners--a reality whose impact on policy concerning regulation of nonmarital unions has not been explored. As this Article shows, a significant number of people benefit financially from nonrecognition of their relationships. While in most cases the state turns a blind eye to this financial gain, when it …
Deprivative Recognition, Erez L. Aloni
Deprivative Recognition, Erez L. Aloni
Erez Aloni
Family law is now replete with proposals advocating for the legal recognition of nonmarital relationships: those between friends, relatives, unmarried intimate partners, and the like. The presumption underlying these proposals is that legal recognition is financially beneficial to partners. This assumption is sometimes wrong: Legal recognition of relationships can be harmful to unmarried partners--a reality whose impact on policy concerning regulation of nonmarital unions has not been explored. As this Article shows, a significant number of people benefit financially from nonrecognition of their relationships. While in most cases the state turns a blind eye to this financial gain, when it …
Registering Relationships, Erez L. Aloni
Registering Relationships, Erez L. Aloni
Erez Aloni
Despite the dramatic changes in family structure in the past decades--including the unprecedented and skyrocketing number of families who live in nonmarital arrangements--marriage and marriage-mimic institutions remain the only legal options for the recognition of relationships. This regulatory regime leaves millions of Americans without the means to establish and protect relationship rights. This Article suggests that the legal issues arising from nonmarital relationships would be best addressed if more options for legal recognition of such relationships were offered. Accordingly, this Article presents the primary principles of a registration-based marriage alternative that is founded on contract: “registered contractual relationships” (RCRs). This …
Cloning And The Lgbti Family: Cautious Optimism, Erez Aloni
Cloning And The Lgbti Family: Cautious Optimism, Erez Aloni
Erez Aloni
While fertile, opposite-sex couples can have children who carry a mix of their genes without involving third parties in the reproductive process, this option is not available to the majority of the LGBTI community. If this were simply a biological fact, it would not raise any equal protection or other constitutional issues. However, emerging technologies in the field of reproductive cloning may offer the LGBTI community the chance to have genetically related children—possibly even with a mix of both partners’ genes. As such, bans on federally funding research that would help to refine and ensure the safety and efficacy of …
Incrementalism, Civil Unions, And The Possibility Of Predicting Legal Recognition Of Same-Sex Marriage, Erez Aloni
Incrementalism, Civil Unions, And The Possibility Of Predicting Legal Recognition Of Same-Sex Marriage, Erez Aloni
Erez Aloni
Scholars who have examined the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships in European countries have concluded that the path to the legalization of same-sex marriage follows an incremental process involving specific stages. They suggest that it is possible to predict, based on certain visible social and legal processes or assessable parameters, which U.S. states will be the next to recognize same-sex marriage. These scholars argue that such small cumulative legal changes at the state level constitute the best means of legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States, and that civil unions are a necessary step in this process. This article shows …