Oh man, that crazy Senator Scott McCoy (D – Salt Lake, District 2) is at it again…For the third session in a row he is proposing that, get this, dependents or a co-dependent person get access to someone’s estate if their provider dies even if they do not have a blood relationship. Crazy, I know! I mean how could we give someone that kind of gift just because they happened to be in a relationship wherein they helped each other through life. Well, regardless, S.B. 32 intends to do just that.

As I stated before, this will be the third time the body has seen this bill. Last year the bill was circled (a fancy way of saying “we will get back to it if we have the time”) by the Senate and the year prior it had its enacting clause struck, also by the Senate.

This, ladies and gentleman, is a good bill and one that deserves to at least be heard in both bodies. This bill will do nothing to take away from inheritance rights of those who are direct blood relatives unless it is specifically designated in the will (something that is already legal as is); rather this bill will ensure that a dependant or co-dependant will have access to an estate if something is not written down. As an example current inheritance law states that an estate will go to a child or children when the parent passes even if no will is written – this bill would expand that if a person was able to prove that they were in a dependant or co-dependant relationship not currently recognized by law.

Not many people know that estates that can not be claimed go directly to the state in the event of death. All this bill will do is add one more step that makes it a little easier for people to claim that they have rightful inheritance.

Of course this bill will face trouble. If you have not figured it out by now, this bill is designed to help those who are not in traditional relationships. What “non-traditional relationships” mean in the eyes of the majority of legislators is that this bill is for the homos and the homos only.

Yes this bill would benefit those in long-term homosexual relationships, but it also benefits those heterosexual couples who have decided not to get married.

I am of the opinion that it is only fair that codependents in non-traditional relationships get the same benefits as those that have chosen the classic route. This bill does nothing to inherently promote the idea that people should enter into these modern relationships (how many gay people are going to stay together for 40 years because they know they will have access to their partner’s inheritance?) What this bill does do is make sure that people are better taken care of in the event of a loved one’s passing.