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Full-Text Articles in Law
What About The Children: How Children Of Same-Sex Couples Are Left Without State-Run Support, Ann Kathryn Watson
What About The Children: How Children Of Same-Sex Couples Are Left Without State-Run Support, Ann Kathryn Watson
The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice
States should enact legislation affording same-sex partners the same rights and responsibilities to their children as opposite-sex partners. Although federal law mandates specific duties owed to the child, the language is silent about whether it applies to same-sex partners. Moreover, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. Some states—namely Texas—have passed their own version of DOMA. These states have subsequently denied same-sex partners the same rights granted to opposite-sex partners—such as conservatorship, visitation, and child support. Same-sex partners have used DOMA as a legal strategy to either avoid …
Supporting Children, Balancing Lives, Katharine K. Baker
Supporting Children, Balancing Lives, Katharine K. Baker
Pepperdine Law Review
This paper examines how U.S. child support policy validates traditional divisions of labor and thereby hinders individual attempts to achieve an acceptable work/family balance. It argues that by using the household as the relevant unit of measurement for child support purposes, family law doctrine legitimates the specialization contracts that arise within households. These specialization contracts, used most extensively in wealthy, elite households, undermine attempts to distribute caretaking and provider roles more equally between parents. The article suggest that by dispensing with the household as the relevant unit of measurement and treating all parents individually, each with a responsibility to caretake …