In my continuing effort to point out the advantages of being gay and unmarried (or domestically partnered), here’s another one:

For those of us who have been involved in committed, monotonous — oops, I meant monogamous — relationships, it has been reported on occasion that sometimes one or both members of a couple “stray,” which is nice word for having sex with someone else. For lesbian couples, we know this doesn’t happen until 90 years after meeting.

According to Mattison & McWhorter’s book The Male Couple, for gay male couples it doesn’t usually happen until after the first 90 minutes…. The authors report that most male couples are not physically monogamous.

Because gay and lesbian couples cannot legally marry, there are no criminal laws violated when we stray. Instead, the gay man who strays (and his partner finds out) may simply find his Martha Stewart Living magazines mysteriously missing.

By comparison, the lesbian who samples other waves may be looking for a new flame at The Flame.

But neither the gay man nor the lesbian will likely wind up charged with criminal misconduct. Laws relating to adultery do not apply to those who cannot marry.

Straight folks who stray may, in some states, face criminal penalties. According to Dr. Laura, straying from a committed heterosexual marriage was cause for “stoning” in Biblical times.

In the straight, married world, what we might call a “holiday from monogamy” is called “adultery,” a crime that no longer exists in most states, including California.

However, like laws against consensual sodomy, some states still criminalize adultery.

In these states both parties to the adulterous relationship are guilty of adultery, even though one of the partners is not married. In some states, both Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky could have been charged with adultery.

There appears to be no corollary in the developing jurisprudence known as “gay family law.” So, aside from a guilt trip imposed by your partner, no criminal penalties are attached (I’ve talked before about financial penalties, and those do exist and increase with each step we take towards equating domestic partnership with marital units).

Straight marriage implies monogamy. California’s domestic partnership law doesn’t require monogamy. Domestic partners are two adults who have chosen to share one “another’s lives in an intimate and committed relationship of mutual caring” (Cal. Civ. Code § 297). The statute doesn’t require the two partners to be sexually intimate or sexually exclusive. Arguably, two people of the same sex can live together like roommates without sex. They can still enjoy the benefits of domestic partnership status (The law was written by lesbian legislators Sheila Kuehl, Carole Migden and Christine Kehoe).

Provided a domestic partner doesn’t mess with a married person, he or she may be safe from negative action from employers.

But this is not so true of married folks, especially in Michigan, or so said the Michigan Supreme Court recently in Veenstra vs. Washtenaw Country Club. A married man, the golf pro at the country club (of course), began to see a married woman (a member). The two adulterers carried on their illicit relationship under the scornful gaze of club members, finally deciding to leave their respective spouses and shack up together. They attended club events together, causing even more talk among members.

The golf pro’s wife finally had enough of her husband’s affair and decided to divorce him. As a result of the commotion, the country club opted not renew his contract. He sued the club, contending that it discriminated against him because of his divorced status.

But the Michigan Supreme Court found that he was not fired for his status as “divorced.” Rather, the court found that he was discharged because of his adulterous conduct, which isn’t protected by any civil rights statute in the U.S (it is perfectly fine to discriminate against adulterers).

The court said that marital bias statutes simply prevent employers from basing actions on one’s status of being “single, divorced, or married.”

The dissenting judges pointed out that such a limited view of marital status is absurd because “certain conduct can be directly linked to status in such a way that adverse action based on conduct will result in status-based discrimination.”

And they’re right on this score. Had the golf pro not been married, but was, instead, a gay or a straight single man in a domestic partnership, and he fooled around on him (or her), there would have been no adultery. Further, firing him for being gay may have violated some local or state nondiscrimination law.