A comprehensive guide to marriage—perks, consequences, and everything in between—aimed at the LGBTQ+ community, from a leading gay rights lawyer. Not long ago, same-sex couples had to jump through endless hoops to make their relationships even close to legal. Happily, those days are over. But here’s the rub: many gay and lesbian couples, accustomed to living off-grid, are so thrilled to have the benefits of marriage that they jump into it without fully considering the consequences. In Before I Do, leading gay rights attorney Elizabeth F. Schwartz spells out the range of practical considerations any couple should address before tying the knot. She explains the rights married couples have—and those they do not. With cameos from some of the most prominent LGBTQ+ professionals, Schwartz explores all of the implications of marriage from name changes and getting a license to taxes, insurance, Social Security, and much more. Chapters on estate planning, pre- and post-nuptial agreements, and organizing finances make Before I Do a crucial handbook for anyone considering marriage—because, as Schwartz explains, just because you can get married does not mean you should. “During my thirty years of covering the gay beat for the Miami Herald, never did I imagine the need for a marriage guide for LGBT couples. Yet today nothing is more urgent. Before I Do guides all couples, gay and otherwise, about the responsibilities of marriage. Ignore it at your peril.” —Steve Rothaus, The Miami Herald

Permanent Partners, for a decade and a half, has been the authoritative guide to gay and lesbian relationships. In this updated and revised edition, Dr. Betty Berzon offers up-to-the-minute advice on emotional, financial, and legal issues that two men or two women face as they create a life together. She draws on thirty-five years of experience counseling gay couples to help readers improve communication, resolve conflicts, and make their love and commitment last. Book jacket.

WHEN IT COMES TO SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS, this book by Karen Keen contains the most thoughtful, balanced, biblically grounded discussion you’re likely to encounter anywhere. With pastoral sensitivity and respect for biblical authority, Keen breaks through current stalemates in the debate surrounding faith and sexual identity. The fresh, evenhanded reevaluation of Scripture, Christian tradition, theology, and science in Keen’s Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships will appeal to both traditionalist and progressive church leaders and parishioners, students of ethics and biblical studies, and gay and lesbian people who often feel painfully torn between faith and sexuality.

The editors and contributors of this comprehensive text provide a unique and important contribution to LGBT clinical literature. Spanning 30 chapters, they discuss the diverse and complex issues involved in LGBT couple and family therapy. In almost 15 years, this book provides the first in-depth overview of the best practices for therapists and those in training who wish to work effectively with LGBT clients, couples, and families need to know, and is only the second of its kind in the history of the field. The clinical issues discussed include • raising LGBT children • coming out • elderly LGBT issues • sex therapy • ethical and training issues Because of the breadth of the book, its specificity, and the expertise of the contributing authors and editors, it is the definitive handbook on LGBT couple and family therapy.

The voices in this book come from the stories of gay and lesbian partners who talk about their struggles over the years in building a life together. The stories reach beyond the obvious realities of sexual orientation to speak to the joys, sorrows, hopes, and fears of human beings who are committed to making their relationships work. Based on a life-span perspective, in-depth interviews of people whose relationships have lasted more than 15 years explored how partners adapted over the years. Each interview consisted of questions that focused upon dimensions of these relationships over time from the unique perspective of each partner. They were asked about conflict over the years, decision-making styles, ways of working out roles, the importance of social supports, and sexual and psychological intimacy. The research upon which the book is based has continuity with the authors' earlier work on lasting relationships among heterosexual couples, including Lasting Marriages: Men and Women Growing Together (Praeger, 1995). Compared to marriages, relatively little research has been done on the development of same sex relationships. This book will be of great interest to all researchers and students of gender differences, marriage and family therapy, human sexuality, and interpersonal relationships.

In this rich, surprising portrait of the world of lesbian and gay relationships, Christopher Carrington unveils the complex and artful ways that gay people create and maintain both homes and "chosen" families for themselves. "Carefully separating stereotype from reality, Carrington investigates family in the gay and lesbian community. Relying upon interviews and observation, the author analyzes the loves and routings of 52 diverse lesbian, gay, and bisexual couples in the Bay area. . . . [He] closes the work with a discussion of the raging same-sex marriage debate and posits an enlightened solution to this dilemma." —Library Journal

During the past three decades, nations all over the world have been debating whether to allow same-sex couples to marry, or at least grant these couples various rights associated with marriage. In Equality for Same-Sex Couples, Yuval Merin presents the first comparative study of the legal regulation of same-sex partnerships worldwide, as well as a unique survey of the status of same-sex couples in Europe. Merin begins by providing a historical overview of the transformation of marriage from antiquity to the present. He then identifies and critically compares four principal models for the legal regulation and recognition of same-sex partnerships: civil marriage, registered partnership, domestic partnership, and cohabitation. Merin concludes that all of the models except civil marriage discriminate against gays and lesbians just as the "separate but equal" doctrine discriminated against African Americans; thus, so-called alternatives to marriage, even if they provide the same rights and benefits as marriage, are inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.