Top 10 Civil Liberties News Stories - August 22, 2006 Edition

Arizona's anti-gay Proposition 107, which will go on the ballot in November, is directed against lesbian and gay families seeking domestic partner benefits. But the broadly written initiative also impacts the lives of many cohabitating heterosexual couples (making up 10% of couples in Arizona), and five such couples are filing suit. Among the effects of the legislation:

• Corporate domestic partner benefits granted to cohabitating heterosexual couples will be outlawed.
• Sentences for domestic violence involving unmarried couples will be reduced, if the Ohio precedent is followed.
• Seniors in the Tucson Domestic Partner Registry will lose their pension benefits.
• Unmarried heterosexuals may lose the right to visit their partners in the hospital.

Proposition 107's strongest supporters--those who believe that all committed monogamous relationships are sinful unless they are sanctioned by the government by way of marriage--are unlikely to be swayed by this side effect of the legislation, but more casual heterosexual supporters of the Proposition may think twice given its possible effects on their own lives.