Domestic Partnership News Archive
November 21 - November 27, 2000

Thursday, November 23, 2000

Suffolk County employees may get partner benefits through union contracts

A story published today in the New York Daily News reports that months after the Suffolk County Legislature rejected a proposal to extend health benefits to unmarried domestic partners of county employees, it has approved a symbolic measure indicating the county executive and unions should consider negotiating such benefits.

The Legislature's move shows that at least 10 lawmakers would not reject a contract containing provisions for heterosexual or same-sex partners of employees.

"It gives a shot in the arm to the union that providing the benefits for domestic partners would be consistent with county policy," said legislative counsel Paul Sabatino.

Chief Deputy County Executive Eric Kopp, who declined to comment on whether the county would offer domestic partner benefits, said of the lawmakers, "We appreciate their advice."

Ellen Schuler Mauk, of the faculty union for Suffolk County Community College, said she was pleased the lawmakers passed the so-called sense resolution, which is not binding. "We have currently raised the issue as one of our issues for negotiations," she said, adding, "The intent is to be able to provide important coverage for... families in committed relationships regardless of the situation."

Although she supported the benefits, Mauk opposed previous legislation, arguing that rather than mandate it, the issue should be negotiated.

Two Republicans, Presiding Officer Paul Tonna of West Hills and Fred Towle of Shirley, joined the eight Democrats in passing the resolution.

Petition battle brewing over same-sex benefits for Washington state workers

A story published today in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that gay-rights activists are gearing up for another statewide battle, this time over health benefits for gay and lesbian partners of state employees.

Veterans of past campaigns began training people this week to try to thwart signature-gathering for Initiative 250, which would repeal the benefits recently extended to same-sex partners of public employees.

"There's so much at stake. We don't want to legalize workplace discrimination," said Jeannie Hale, a leader of the Bigot Busters. "All families have a right to health care."

Initiative 250, also called the Marriage Benefits Defense Initiative, is based on the idea that only traditional marriages should qualify both partners for dependent health coverage.

The Initiative focuses on a new state policy that, starting in January, will allow public employees to add same-sex domestic partners and their dependents to state health-care plans. The state Public Employees Benefits Board approved the policy last May at the request of Gov. Gary Locke and state worker unions.

The policy covers employees and retirees of state agencies and public schools and colleges. Public employees will pay for the expanded coverage themselves through slightly increased premiums. Major private employers including Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks have similar policies.

The proposed initiative must gain more than 179,000 voter signatures by Dec. 29 in order to be submitted to the Legislature in January. If that happens, the Legislature must either pass the measure into law or put it on the statewide ballot, with or without a proposed alternative.

Proponents of the measure could have filed an initiative directly to the people. But a public vote requires a longer and more expensive campaign. And Initiative 250 could be embraced in Olympia, where legislators strongly backed a ban on gay marriages in 1997 and repeatedly have declined to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Wednesday, November 22, 2000

Unmarried couples gain divorce rights in New Zealand

A story published today in Planet Out reports that under a new law recently passed in New Zealand, same-sex couples will now be able to settle their property disputes in court when they dissolve their relationships.

According to the story, New Zealand's Parliament on November 21 voted 74 - 39 to give gay and lesbian partners   of at least three years' standing the same access to courts for division of property or dissolution as divorcing married couples. That followed a separate vote to similarly add unmarried heterosexual couples to the Property (Relationships) Amendment Bill which passed much more narrowly, 62 - 58.

Under the measure, domestic partners will have the option to create their own equivalent of prenuptial agreements to determine division of property if they don't wish to face the courts' general standard of a 50 - 50 split. If as expected the bill is passed on its final reading next week, the new law will become effective February 1, 2002, replacing a 24-year-old statute.

The biggest problem for some opponents of the legislation is that cohabiting couples will have to actively choose to exempt themselves from the law with a contract, rather than actively choose a legal relationship as with partner registries. 

Prime Minister Jenny Shipley told the Parliament, "I believe this House will rue the day we did this. [I am] told that twenty percent of young people in their twenties are in some sort of de facto relationship. I defy any Government member to say it's their right to deem them to be married, as if they had somehow or other taken on the decisions and responsibilities of a married couple."

Supporters of the new law emphasized that the statute is about property, not marriage, and that it would be fairer than the current situation because it will prevent the exploitation of one partner by another.

Associate Justice Minister Margaret Wilson, who has shepherded the bill, told the Parliament that, "I strongly
believe that those [unmarried] couples are entitled to the same legal rights as those who marry. I also take issue with [Shipley] who suggests that through this legislation somehow people will be married. This is a gross distortion of the facts. This legislation ... gives rights to all parties who go into a relationship, in which they in fact merge their affairs, do in fact buy or have property, do in fact acquire income together. If that relationship should break down, what this law does say is that regardless of the status of their relationship, they have legal rights.

Although it was drafted with the generic term "partner," the committee bowed to overwhelming popular demand and recommended returning to the traditional "spouse, husband, wife, marriage" terms and to use of "de facto" to describe the relationships of unmarried couples.

The definition of a "de facto" relationship no longer includes the phrase "in the nature of marriage" and covers all those who are at least age 18 who live together for at least three years (couples together more briefly could go to court only in extraordinary circumstances).

Patterned after the new law in the Australian state of New South Wales (under which the first gay male couple went to court last month), the New Zealand bill expands judicial discretion in determining property division and support payments to include consideration of the circumstances of a relationship including: its duration; the nature and extent of common residence; whether or not a sexual relationship exists; the degree of financial dependence; the degree of mutual commitment to a shared life; and the care and support of children. While supporters believe this expanded judicial discretion will make settlements more fair, opponents believe it will send many more dissolving couples to court.

The Opposition National Party's spokesperson on justice issues Tony Ryall said, "[O]nly ten percent of [settlements] go to court because the law is now simple. This is going to encourage them to have a go and take their cases to court."

But a 50 - 50 division of property remains the judicial standard except where it creates "economic disparity" between the former partners.

The bill would also give members of de facto couples a claim to at least a portion of a deceased partner's estate.

Tuesday, November 21, 2000

Vatican reiterates condemnation of domestic partnership laws

A story released today by Agencia EFE via COMTEX reports that the Roman Catholic Church has condemned once again measures that would grant legal rights and status to unmarried heterosexual and homosexuals couples, asserting that these relationships harm the institution of marriage and that attempts to equalize them "are not a step for a civilized world."

"During the past few years we have been witnessing repeated attempts to give legal recognition to unmarried couples. These are unions that ignore, and even reject, the institution of marriage," the Pontifical Council for the Family said in a 77-page document released Tuesday.

"These relationships," the Council wrote in its text, "are not protected by the right of matrimony and, therefore, attempts to make them the same dilute the juridicial content of the institution of marriage."

The document, called "Family, Marriage, and De Facto Unions," was signed by Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the council, and by Spanish Cardinal Francisco Gil, council secretary.

Switzerland considering same-sex partnership law

A story published in the recent edition of Rex Wockner's International News reports that the Swiss government has appointed Justice Minister Ruth Metzler to draft a registered-partnership bill for same-sex couples.

The measure is expected to grant registered partners a large number of the rights and obligations of marriage, including adoption rights and access to medically assisted procreation. It also may give immigration rights to the foreign partners of Swiss gays and lesbians.

The story predicts that the process of enacting the law could take several years.