Breaking up is hard to do for anybody. But if you're a same-sex couple, or even an unmarried straight couple, the law does not treat you the same as married couples.
The key to equal treatment, according to two Edwardsville lawyers, is planning. To help those groups protect their legal rights, Todd Sivia, 30, and Erin Doyle, who is in her mid-20s, have turned to the Internet. They launched samesexlegal.com to serve the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
The firm, Sivia Business and Legal Services on South Main Street, specializes in asset protection, including business, real estate, estate planning and family law.
Laws dealing with those financial and family issues also impact unmarried straight people, but that group doesn't face the same stigma as same-sex couples.
"It's definitely an underserved group," Sivia said. "It's still not a widely-accepted community, and people are very cautious about who their attorney is and the information they disclose."
Doyle, who joined the firm in early May, said that because federal and Illinois law do not recognize gay marriage, plans have to be in place if the relationship fails or one partner becomes hospitalized and can't communicate. One idea is to have the partners grant each other powers of attorney, she said.
"Married couples can make decisions for each other, if one is incapacitated," Doyle said. "Same-sex or unmarried couples with a lifelong committed partnership can't make decisions for each other if no plan is in place."
That means one partner could be excluded from hospital visits or cut out from receiving any survivor benefits. Sivia said the website includes forms and other information people can use in their search for legal representation.
"There are maybe three or four other law firms that do this type of work, but no one really has any basic information available for the LGBT community," he said. "Our website is specifically geared to fully inform them as opposed to other sites that have one small paragraph."
Sivia, a conservative member of the Republican party, said the issue is one in which he breaks with his party. Even Democrats nationally have been loathe to take on the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 legislation that defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman for all federal purposes.
Although people may be surprised a conservative has set up the website, Sivia said members of the LGBT community need to know they are not alone and have certain rights. He said same-sex couples were asking him about financial planning and family issues. That led him to attend a seminar in Boston last October dealing specifically with those issues. Then an Illinois state trooper, Dennis Engelhard, died in an accident. He and his partner in the same-sex relationship didn't have a plan.
"His partner was devastated because he couldn't receive survivor benefits," Sivia said. "With the correct planning, he could have received those benefits."
It's a message Sivia and Doyle believe is important.
Contact Ken West at 618-344-0264, ext. 101
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