the 1 ur with

Interesting development in the language. As the media (taking the Times as the example) refers ever-more matter-of-factly to LGBTQ people and their "partners," I'm starting to see references to unmarried straight people and their "companions." Viz this article about Andrew Cuomo and Sandra Lee.
It would be a shame if this became a signifier of one sort of couple to the exclusion of others. On the other hand, if "companion" became a universal term (and it certainly could work for the polyamorous), perhaps it could be the basis of nondiscriminatory law in an inclusive society.
I'm old enough to have lived through quite a few culture shifts. It wasn't that long ago that a holder of electoral office who lived with a woman not his wife would be destroyed, not uplifted, by an article about that relationship. And the New Yorker has become pretty casual about mentioning a man's husband or a woman's wife. My brain may still trip over an old assumption, but it's a welcome wakening.