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Monday, June 29, 2009 12:00 AM

Crying foul on Martina Navratilova

The tennis star's legal woes remind us that even gay icons have some growing up to do about same-sex marriage

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  • Sunday, June 28, 2009 06:57 PM

    Common law relationship rights can pave the legal way

    A long time before gay marriage was legalized in Canada, common law rights began applying to same sex couples in many jurisdictions. For at least a decade prior to legalization, if not longer provinces recognized that asset dissolution in the even of a common law relationship breakup should be the same for the same for all romantically involved couples - straight or gay.

    These are the kind of steps that may be taken years before the court recognizes formal marriage and I think go a long way to providing a context of social acceptance and norms around relationship standards for everyone.

    If Martina doesn't want to share with her spouse, who I'm assuming did not work and traveled with her/supported her emotionally instead - then she should have written up a prenuptial agreement that said so. She's a rich woman with a lawyer or two I'm sure - it's not the first time she has gone to court over this exact issue. I don't agree that first comes formal marriage and then comes the morality of taking care of someone you've loved in the event a relationship doesn't work out. We should all treat each other with the same standard of decency should a marriage dissolve, no matter what the state says about our right to stand in church and declare it.

    The fact is gay or straight there are lots of assholes in the world who will go out of their way to avoid certain responsibilities involving money. From the sounds of this story Martina is one of them, and it's not at all an issue of whether gay marriage is legal or not. Whether the courts find her owing her partner is another matter altogether - I suspect they won't because that would legitimize same sex unions more than any judge in the US would want to.

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