ds for a divorce. Societal changehave been felt in marriages over the past 25 years as divorce rates haveincreased and have been integrated into even upper class families.Proposals to legalize same-sex marriage or to enact broad domesticpartnership laws are currently being promoted by gay and lesbian activists,especially in Europe and North America. The trend in western European nationsduring the past decade has been to increase legal aid to homosexual relationsand has included marriage benefits to some same-sex couples. For example, withinthe past six years, three Scandinavian countries have enacted domesticpartnership laws allowing same-sex couples in which at least one partner is acitizen of the specified country therefore allowing many benefits thatheterosexual marriages are given. In the Netherlands, the Parliament isconsidering domestic partnership status for same-sex couples, all majorpolitical parties favor recognizing same-sex relations, and more than a dozentowns have already done so. Finland provides governmental social benefits tosame-sex partners. Belgium allows gay prisoners the right to have conjugalvisits from same-sex partners. An overwhelming majority of European nations havegranted partial legal status to homosexual relationships. The EuropeanParliament also has passed a resolution calling for equal rights for gays andlesbians.In the United States, efforts to legalize same-sex domestic partnershiphave had some, limited success. The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.reported that by mid-1995, thirty-six municipalities, eight counties, threestates, five state agencies, and two federal agencies extended some benefits to,or registered for some official purposes, same-sex domestic partnerships. In1994, the California legislature passed a domestic partnership bill thatprovided official state registration of same-sex couples and provided limitedmarital rights and privileges relating to hospital visitation, wills a...
