Reply #20: This is a tragedy, but there is another lesson to be learned.

[pnwmom]

Nobody should have children unless they've gotten the legalities squared away, whether it's through the legal process of marriage or going to a lawyer and getting it done outside of marriage.

It would have been easy enough to draft durable powers of attorney for each other, and to make each other executors of their wills. I hope the children are either the biological or the adopted children of the deceased, or there won't be any Social Security. And I hope they're the biological or adopted children of the remaining parent, or she may have to fight the relatives for custody.

I'm a proponent of gay marriage, but no one should who's planning to have children should wait for the Federal Govt. to act. There are legal actions that can and should be taken NOW.

Before anyone accuses me of homophobia, I'm just being practical, as the daughter of a gay man who went to a lawyer when he needed to.