YES on a new word for civil marriage: law professor Nancy Polikoff to speak at University of Melbourne Law School on April 2nd

03/15/09 Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage:

For 30 years, American University Law Professor Nancy Polikoff "has been writing about and litigating cases involving lesbian and gay families." She favors substituting another name for marriage as a civil institution - "civil partnership." For her "alternative vision," she recommends the 2006 "Beyond Marriage" statement. See als0 her 2008 book, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under the Law.

Hers is a version of a proposal that Pepperdine University law professors Douglas Kmiec and Shelley Ross Saxer have recently advanced (here and here) for California, and that authors of a Domestic Partnership Initiative hope to qualify for the 2010 ballot. Katherine M. Franke, Director of Columbia Law School's Gender & Sexuality Law Program, also thinks that the "marriage alternative" proposal is a "great idea."

Polikoff will discuss her book in an April 2nd lecture at a University of Melbourne Law School. forum on April 2nd. (Her reform proposal is as likely to elicit opposition in Australia as it does in the United States.)