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Councilman Bill Rosendahl and Longtime Love Officially Register as Domestic Partners
Rosendahl in 2011 (Photo by Councilmember Bill Rosendahl via Flickr)
It's official: L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl is a man in love, and their relationship is official on paper. After 17 years together, Rosendahl and his longtime partner Hedi El Kholti have registered as domestic partners, according to L.A. Now, which is, for now, as close to marriage as the state of California will permit.
Here's how California's Family Code defines the partnership:
Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.
Domestic partnerships, however, are exempt from most federal benefits.
Rosendahl is one of the more vocal members of the Council who recently revealed he will not be seeking a third term. Last year, on the heels of the revelation Rosendahl uses medical marijuana, the councilman announced he has cancer, and would be focusing on his treatment. His return to City Hall was marked with much celebration; soon after he went on a tear about politicians while at the mic during a council meeting.
The newly paperwork-ed couple are intending to "wait to celebrate their union until after the U.S. Supreme Court delivers its much-anticipated ruling on gay marriage, which is expected by late June," elaborates L.A. Now. Rosendahl believes the court will rule in favor of same-sex marriage.
Of his partner nearly two decades, Rosendahl said: "I love him. And that love should be appreciated by all the systems in our country."
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