So today is a pretty big day for Dee and I….we get to become official “domestic partners” recognized by the state of Washington. We didn’t make the trek to Olympia, but we have filled out the paperwork and had it notarized and mailed in. It doesn’t give us too much more than what we have now, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s all fairly legal and morbid but important all the same.

The rights granted to registered domestic partners include:
• Visitation rights at health care facilities.
• Ability to grant consent for health care for a partner who is not competent. Health care providers could disclose patient information to the patient’s partner.
• Automatic revocation of a domestic partner as the beneficiary for nonprobate assets if the partnership ends.
• Automatic revocation of power of attorney granted to a domestic partner if the partnership ends.
• Title and rights to cemetery plots and rights of interment.
• Right to control disposition of a deceased partner’s remains, including right to make anatomical gifts, authorize autopsies and consent to remove partner’s remains from a cemetery plot.
• Inheritance rights when the domestic partner dies without a will.
• Administration of an estate if the domestic partner dies without a will or if the named representative declines or is unable to serve.
• Making domestic partners beneficiaries of wrongful-death actions. Lawsuits for wrongful death could be brought on behalf of a surviving domestic partner.
• Requiring that information recorded on death certificates include domestic partnership status.