Domestic Partnership News Archive
November 14 - November 20, 2000

Friday, November 17, 2000

Green Party reveals details of German registered partnership bill

The Green Party has published a summary of the registered partnership bills passed last week by the lower house of Parliament in Germany.  Both bills apply only to same-sex couples.

The legal provisions of the registered partnership law (first part) will become effective in the summer of 2001.  The partners will be acknowledged as relatives. They will be obliged to care for each other and to grant mutual maintenance and to live together.

The most important legal provisions of this first part include:

- Official registration: The registration will be performed by a state authority.

- Changing names: Registered partnerships are entitled to the same possibilities of changing names as married couples (for example: if Michael Meyer marries Thomas Schmid, Michael could chose one of the following last names: Meyer, Schmid, Meyer-Schmid, Schmid-Meyer).

- Inheritance law: The legal provisions for married couples will be applied to registered partnerships.

- Custody rights: If one partner has children, the other partner will get custody rights for daily life decisions (education, medical care etc.)

- Kinship: The relatives of the other partner will be considered as brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law or as a corresponding kinship.

- Denial of testifying against each other and information rights: The registered partners are allowed to deny to testify against each other in a criminal trial (or in preliminary proceedings). In hospitals and similar institutions the other partner has information rights.

- Rights of the tenant's lease: If one partner dies, the other partner is allowed to stay in the apartment and to become the obligee of the tenant's lease.

- Social benefits for children: If one partner is unemployed, he/she will get higher unemployment payments if there are children in the registered partnership. This regulation applies to the general children benefits, too.

- Health and care insurance: Registered partnerships get health insurance benefits and care insurance benefits.

- Immigration rights: Foreign partners get a residence permit. The legal provisions for immigration and labor permits for married couples will be applied to registered partnerships, too.

A second registered partnership law also was passed by the lower house of parliament (Bundestag), requires the additional approval of the upper house (Bundesrat). This law, which is pending in the upper house, includes  the following legal provisions:

- Registration at the registry office. (The federal government has proposed to assume the authority to register such partnerships, just as it now is responsible for registering heterosexual marriages).

- Income taxes: the obligation for mutual maintenance (livelihood) should be considered. Annual tax reduction benefits up to DM 40.000 (about Euro 20.000) should be granted.

- Inheritance taxes and similar taxes: same provisions as for married couples.

- Law of the civil service: The legal provisions for married civil servants should be applied to registered partnerships.

- Welfare benefits (for emergency cases, housing): The income of the other partner will be considered, too.

Thursday, November 16, 2000

Court upholds domestic partner benefits program in Gainsville, Florida

A story published today in the Gainsville Sun reports that a local judge has dismissed a retiree's lawsuit challenging the city of Gainesville's policy of extending health benefits to unmarried partners of city employees.

The policy, which took affect earlier this year, was reported by city officials to be providing the benefits to eight same-sex partners and four unmarried, different-sex partners.

Retired Army Col. Jack Martin of Gainesville said Wednesday that he was disappointed by Circuit Judge Stan Morris' ruling.

Morris ruled this week that Martin did not have standing to challenge the policy because he is not a city employee. Morris in his four-page ruling also wrote that even if Martin did have legal standing, the judge would have ruled against him, citing a recent appeals ruling upholding a similar ordinance in Broward County.

Michigan newspapers to offer same-sex partner benefits

A story published today in the Advocate reports that six of eight Advance Publications–owned newspapers in Michigan announced they will begin offering benefits to the same-sex partners of employees beginning in January, the Detroit News reports.

The papers offering the benefits are the Ann Arbor News, the Bay City Times, the Flint Journal, the Jackson Citizen Patriot, the Kalamazoo Gazette, and the Saginaw News. The two papers not offering the benefits are the
Grand Rapids Press and the Muskegon Chronicle.

Dan Gaydou, publisher of the Press, said the paper is still considering the benefits but that “the timing was not right.” Gary Ostrom, publisher of the Muskegon paper, said he is close to making his decision.

November 14, 2000

Federal appeals court hears challenge to domestic partner law in San Francisco

A story released today over PR Newswire reports that the American Center for Law and Justice today urged the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling and strike down the domestic partners law in San Francisco, Calif.

The ACLJ today appeared before a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco urging the federal appeals court to overturn a May 1999 ruling by a federal judge that upheld the domestic partnership ordinance of the City of San Francisco.

The ACLJ filed suit against the City of San Francisco in 1997 on behalf of S.D. Myers, Inc. - an Ohio-based contractor that performs maintenance on electric transformers - after the company failed to win a $143,000 contract with the city because it refused to comply with the city's domestic partners ordinance.

The ordinance mandates that any contractor that does business with the city must provide its employees with marital benefits to unmarried heterosexual and homosexual partners.

The suit challenged the ordinance on several grounds: the city should not be permitted to impose its view of "family" on corporations; the city overstepped its authority in creating the law; and, the ordinance creates an unfair restriction on interstate commerce.

However, in May 1999, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilkin rejected the claims in the suit and sided with the city. The ACLJ appealed the decision to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.