The Federal government now has one less way to screw gay couples when one partner dies. Courtesy of the HRC and a few reasonable legistlators:
The Federal Pension Protection Act passed by Congress and signed into law today by President George W. Bush contains two key provisions that will extend important financial protections to same-sex couples and other Americans who leave their retirement savings to non-spouse beneficiaries. The bipartisan provisions in the bill are a step forward in equality and stem from a continuous effort led by the Human Rights Campaign.
David and I have actually worried about this sort of thing a lot. It’s one less thing to worry about, which these days is really important–because we all have plenty to worry about!
This is really great news. I never knew that the old law discriminated– shows how privileged I am to be in a “traditional” marriage. Our investment advisor talked about the two instances discussed in the article when we set up our beneficiaries, but while she is married to a woman she never said that I could only do this because I am married to a man.