Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Passage of an unmarried pathbreaker
Thanks to Kevin for the sad news that Michelle Triola Marvin passed away.
Ms. Marvin was one party in the law suit that established in California law the right of unmarried partners to sue for joint property on grounds that their partners had violated a relationship contract. Thirty years later, many courts recognize property rights for unmarried partners, but there is no consistent law on this. In 2000, the American Law Institute recommended that all de facto domestic partners should have property rights.
On the less wonky, more human side: It is really neat to learn that, although she became famous as a result of her six-year unmarried relationship with Lee Marvin, Michelle’s ultimate life partner was Dick Van Dyke. They were unmarried to eachother for 30 years! Our condolences to Mr. Van Dyke and their family.
You need a health care proxy, New York needs a law
A New York Times article about medical patients who need advocates reminds me again how much each of us needs to designate a health care proxy. Unlike a writing living will, designating a proxy means thinking about life not death! And it’s easy! Just pick your state, print your forms, get it done!
Too bad the Times didn’t mention that patient advocates in New York state don’t have the right to challenge doctors’ decisions unless they are properly designated proxies, and that only about 20% of patients name proxies. New York is still the only state besides Missouri that lacks a medical decision making law. If you live in New York state, click here to tell the Assembly to pass that law!
If you live in another state, check out our map showing how your marital status can affect your hospital righs. Then write your advance directives!
Gifts for Unmarried & Single Americans Week
Last week we discovered that it’s not easy to send an e-card for USA Week. How about sending a gift? Today I received a sweet gift from Ellen Kaye in the form of a fresh list of unmarried songs to add to our collection.
Today I also added a gift to my wish list: the new book Changing Poverty, Changing Policies, featuring an essay by Cancian and Reed which finds that
the economic benefit of marriage isn’t what it used to be … because single women, even those with kids, have an easier time supporting themselves outside of marriage than they used to. [And ] that replicating marriage wouldn’t necessarily generate more per-person wealth.
Thanks to Jessica the intern for finding the Time Magazine article about this new book. I look forward to incorporating more of its findings into our campaign to get marriage programs out of the federal anti-poverty budget.
Our very own Hallmark moment?
Unmarried and Single Americans Week starts Sunday!
Thanks to April for pointing out that Hallmark is missing out on a hundred-million strong market for e-cards. It takes a few moments, but you can register your request for an e-card here.
Back to school part 2 – texts need critical reading
Thanks and congratulations to AtMP member Whitney J. in Florida, who sent us copies of pages of her textbook along with this note:
I have been taking a class on human sexuality this summer. The reading was pretty interesting, and I was enjoying it, until I got to Chapter 10. I was pretty disheartened at the description of cohabitation, and I thought I would share it with you. Maybe someone could send the texbook authors some less biased statistics and information? I really hate to think that students learning from this text may second-guess themselves and their relationships because two people decided to cherry-pick the research to use in their textbook.
AtMP’s student interns and I are impressed and inspired that Whitney is such a critical thinker and activist!
Whitney highlighted these lines from the textbook: “…these marriages [that follow cohabitation] are more likely to end in divorce than are marriages not preceded by cohabitation. … the seeds of divorce are sown in the pre-engagement relationship. … men in pre-engagement cohabiting relationships were less committed to the partner.” And, “…married men and women are significantly more satisfied than are cohabiting or single men and women in a continuing relationship.” The pages of the text that she sent did not offer any further caveats or alternate analysis.
As Whitney knows, AtMP has been addressing this kind of blunt negativity about unmarried relationships for over a decade. We’ve collected a variety of expert interpretations about the data on cohabitation, especially cohabitation and divorce. We also wrote our own careful, nuanced analysis of data that was widely misreported back in 2002.
Following Whitney’s suggestion, we’re sending this information to the textbook authors – a married couple!
Back to school resources
Whether you’re heading back to high school, college or grad school, as a student, teaching assistant or professor, wouldn’t you like to be handed something useful, unique, and completely free? Here’s our gift to you!
Statistics and expert commentary: are you gathering comprehensive data for a research report, or looking for one zinger to win a family argument? Turn to AtMP! As always, our goal is to be the most current, relevant, objective and non-judgmental site for information about unmarried Americans on the web. Check out what’s new in the Facts and Fun section of our website and tell us what you think. Then tell your friends – the public debate about un/marriage will only improve when more people have the facts.
Liven up your campus: inspired by our friends at the National Marriage Boycott, we’ve listed lots of resources and some guidelines to help you start a campus chapter. What else can we do to help you? We’re open to your ideas.
Only duds on campus? Meet like-minded people online: AtMP’s Facebook group has nearly 500 members, as does the social network at National Marriage Boycott. Our email listserve has over 500 members (mostly not the same people). And our virtual book club has nearly 50 members. There’s always someone to talk to!
Illegitimacy and advance directives in the news
I keep an eye out for news that affects the cultural context surrounding AtMP’s efforts to reduce singlism and marital status discrimination, as well as news about specific projects we’re working on. This week two aspects of the attacks on President Obama and his health care reform efforts caught my eye.
First, the over-publicized, utterly fabricated stories about the President’s birth certificate. How could that nonsense possibly be relevant to us? I have a Google news alert for “illegitimacy + birth,” and I’m concerned any time I see an increase in the use of that outdated combination of words. It’s worth remembering that the concept of illegitimacy was abandoned just a few decades ago, and that some people (who prefer divisiveness to diversity) keep trying to bring it back. AtMP has consistently spoken out against calling children “illegitimate,” from educating the conservative Washington Times in 2001, to chastising an anti-immigrant group in 2007. The current lies about President Obama don’t call for our intervention. But, it is nice to recall that (after being born in the U.S.) he was raised in perfect picture of family diversity, experiencing a single mother, an extended family household, a step-parent, and half-siblings with a variety of geographic and cultural origins. Just like so many of us!
Second, the mis-representation of a very small, very good element of health care reform – a proposal to help more people write advance directives. AtMP spends a lot of energy informing people that we all have the right to name our medical decision-makers and state our wishes through advance directives, regardless of our marital status. Too few people take advantage of this power, so we’re glad to see that Barack and Michelle Obama have written their advance directives, and that legislation might encourage more people to do so. Here’s how it’s explained at Salon.com:
The legislation would order Medicare to pay for consultations between patients and doctors on end-of-life decisions, which it currently doesn’t cover. But the consultations wouldn’t be mandatory; if your grandmother doesn’t want to go talk to her doctor about end-of-life care, she won’t have to. Because Medicare doesn’t pay for this kind of planning now, only 40 percent of seniors who depend on the government insurance say they have an advance directive that tells healthcare providers what measures they do and don’t want used to prolong their life, even though 75 percent say they think it’s important. The lack of planning actually costs a lot of money. Medicare spends billions and billions of dollars annually on expensive treatment during the last year of a dying patient’s life. Without allowing Medicare to pay for end-of-life consultations, it’s hard to know whether patients even want to go to such expensive lengths.
Seeking judges for media awards
Last year’s Unmarried and Single Americans Week Media Awards were really fun. If you’d like to be a judge on this year’s panel, please apply for a judgeship! AtMP seeks judges who are grammatical, witty (but not snarky), and recognize the importance of fairness and equality for all unmarried people. The application is short and simple:
a) write a one- to three-sentence commentary on the just-released Census Dept. fact sheet for USA Week 2009.
b) confirm that you’ll be available to read, and write one- to three-sentence reviews of, up to a dozen news articles between Sept. 27 – Oct 4.
c) Click here to submit your judgeship application by September 1st.
New Yorkers celebrate Unmarried Pride with AtMP
The party featured a bountiful table of sweets, raffle prizes and books about alternatives to a marriage-based legal system.
Last Sunday, AtMP board member Kevin Maillard and his partner Iris hosted a lovely party for AtMP in their Manhattan apartment. The gathering was an opportunity for them to introduce AtMP to their family and friends, and to meet other New Yorkers who are already members of the AtMP family. Many of the guests were academics like Kevin or lawyers like Iris.
Rose Cuison Villazor and Kevin Maillard are co-editors of a book on race, sex and marriage that is due out in 2010.
Kudos to Rev. Schwalenberg
from the Milwaulkee Journal-Sentinel:
“Society obviously benefits from healthy relationships. But healthy relationships are not limited to marriage,” said the Rev. Craig Schwalenberg, assistant minister at First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee, which recognizes civil unions by same-sex partners.
“Attaching a stigma to those who choose not to marry or to divorce for good reason is not something I’d be interested in promoting,” he said.
