Law professor Carlos A. Ball, "Same-Sex Marriage as a Means to Something Better" - and a related article by law professor John Culhane

07/28/09 Huffington Post, by law professor Carlos A. Ball:

In this post, Ball discusses the movement to expand access to the rights and benefits of marriage beyond married couples, recognizing Nancy Polikoff as one the movement's leading proponents. Ball contends that "our goal, over the long run, should be to lessen the prioritization of marital status in the distribution of rights and benefits."

Law professor John G. Culhane has recently argued that the legal rules of dissolution provide a compelling reason to privilege marriage over less formal commitments, such as relationships among unmarried cohabitants. [John G. Culhane, Marriage Equality? First, Justify Marriage (If You Can), 1 Drexel L.R. 485 (posted 07/03/09)] He discusses "ALI’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution ... which devotes an entire chapter to suggested rules for first defining, and then allocating property between, domestic partners." [505] Informed by the ALI model, the law, he believes,

"is moving towards a reasonable position on dissolution of relationships: marriages continue in a favored position that recognizes the interdependency and duration that most married couples want, but other long-term, committed relationships are protected to the extent that their lived reality mirrors that of married couples." [507]