A citizen speaks in support of introducing a multi-person domestic partnership registration system at the West Hollywood City Council meeting on the 2nd.
An instance has emerged where the government is shaking the boundaries of the family system in order to protect individual rights.
The West Hollywood City Council unanimously approved an ordinance on the 2nd establishing a West Hollywood multi-person domestic partnership registration system involving three or more adults. The ordinance was directly sponsored by Mayor John Heilman.
Under the new system, three or more adults aged 18 and older can register their relationship with the city government if all parties consent. Applicants do not need to be residents of West Hollywood, but blood relations prohibited from marriage under California law are excluded.
Upon registration, partners can visit each other in city-jurisdiction medical facilities or detention centers and receive certain protections during the leasing process.
Previously, people in polyamorous relationships have faced difficulties with hospital visits or housing issues because their relationships were not legally recognized, even though they cared for one another like family. The city government aims to establish minimum protection devices for such relationships through this system.
This ordinance is a follow-up measure to the city council’s prohibition of discrimination against polyamorous relationships last March. In California, Berkeley and Oakland also prohibit discrimination based on family structure.
Multi-person relationship registration itself is not entirely new. Somerville and Cambridge in Massachusetts previously allowed domestic partnership registration for three or more people.
However, registering a relationship in West Hollywood does not grant the same legal status as legal marriage or a domestic partnership registered with the California state government. The scope of protection is also limited to the jurisdiction of West Hollywood.
Some point out that the system does not adequately encompass various relationship forms. The current ordinance targets cases where three or more people form a single joint relationship, meaning that forms where one person maintains separate two-person relationships with multiple individuals may fall outside the protection scope.
City Councilmember Chelsea Lee Byers stated that she will pursue additional ordinance amendments to supplement these issues.
