I've Tried

Patrick Appel plays devil's advocate to an argument against an idea that Ross Douthat came up with regarding marriage/unions (I came up with this idea as well almost a year ago).

Ross says that this domestic partnership would allow for adoption. Following Ross's guidelines, let's pretend that I'm a heterosexual male in a domestic partnership with my heterosexual best friend. We decide that we want to adopt a child together, a right it seems we would have under Ross's law. What happens, several years later, when one of us meets a woman we want to marry? How do you resolve the domestic partners' financial obligations to each other and the custody battle?

The best I could do with the conundrum that Appel serves up (I too came up with the same problem) was that the arrangement should be held to a business standard having renewal dates and fiduciary duties that would detail points of action for dissolving the partnership (e.g. penalties, support for children, etc).  Such action plans would be necessary if there were children involved.  Or they could just do what most family court judges do and award custody of the child to the female, or most effeminate partner.  Oh please, as if you thought there was something else they were doing.