Bill would expand domestic partner law in California:

Responding to the growing trend of couples raising children out of wedlock, a San Francisco lawmaker plans to introduce a bill today that would give young and middle-age heterosexual couples who are not married the right to register as domestic partners.

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State Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, said she decided to pursue legislation allowing heterosexual couples to register as domestic partners when she saw that so many more children are being born to unmarried women, many of whom live with the fathers.

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Migden carried the legislation in 1999 setting up California’s domestic partner law and said she had wanted to include all couples at that point. However, the law as adopted only allows gay and lesbian couples or different-sex couples in which one partner is over age 62 to register. Many seniors decide not to marry to protect their pension benefits. There are currently about 40,000 registered domestic partners, according to the secretary of state.

“When it first began this was envisioned as an alternative to marriage, but frankly this isn’t political statement, this is a reflection of the new family configuration, like it or not,” Migden said.

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