Man, that’s what I was going to say! Though I was also going to ask if the biological parents of either of you are still alive. If so, could you convince them to adopt one of you?
A neighbor of mine, Jack Baker, tried to marry his boyfriend 35-some years ago. They were denied a marriage license, and fought that all the way to the US Supreme Court (See Baker vs. Nelson). But after the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, then the boyfriend Mike McConnell legally adopted Jack. That was about 1971 or 1972. The adoption was allowed in Minnesota, and gave them at least some legal rights & responsibilities for each other. That adoption has been legally accepted pretty much everywhere, I understand.
They had expected that it would mostly give them legal inheritance rights and hospital visitation rights. But they discovered other unexpected benefits. Like reduced tuition (family resident rates) at the University of Minnesota. So the University Bursar’s office was notifying them that they were entitled to a reduction in tuition, at the same time that the University Library department was firing Mike McConnell (because being openly gay would somehow interfere with being a librarian at the U.).
If you adopt your lover, would that then become incest?
Depends on the legal definition in your jurisdiction, but most seem to require some degree of consanguinity (shared blood) for it to be legally incest.
The reasons given for the legal prohibition of incest seem to be:
- preventing genetic abnormalities caused by reproduction between close relatives, (not very relevant between GLBT couples)
and - preventing intra-family sexual abuse of chidren (also not relevant for adults).
I keed, I keed. 