Monday, September 2, 2002

A story published today by the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Philadelphia's City Council 1998 city ordinance designed to provide benefits to the same-sex partners of city employees was overturned Thursday by a unanimous Commonwealth Court.

The court said the city had exceeded its powers.

By giving city benefits to gay and lesbian couples, the court held, Council altered the definition of marriage as it is set down in state law.

A statute overwhelmingly adopted by the legislature in 1996

says: "It is hereby declared to be the strong and long-standing public policy of this Commonwealth that marriage shall be between one man and one woman."

Citing that language in bold print, Commonwealth Court said in a 24-page opinion: "Nothing could be more clear... . Philadelphia's category of a marital relationship does indeed violate the abundantly clear public policy of this state."

The decision reversed rulings of two Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judges who had upheld the ordinance.

Councilman Michael A. Nutter, a key sponsor of the ordinance, said he believed that Commonwealth Court had "misunderstood" Council's intention.

"We all know that we can't redefine marriage, and we're not trying to redefine marriage," Nutter said Friday. "What we're trying to do is have a fair system and not discriminate."

It will be up to Mayor Street and the city Law Department to decide whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The city's ordinance provided that a gay or lesbian couple could certify that they were life partners by filing a "verification statement" with the city Human Relations Commission. About 120 people have filed such statements, which allowed them to gain some benefits and a tax break.

Any city employee who filed such a certificate could make his or her partner a recipient of health and welfare benefits in the same way as a spouse. That provision applied to city employees only.

A second ordinance, also overturned by Commonwealth Court, exempted all same-sex couples certified as life partners from the city's 3 percent real-estate-transfer tax when adding or removing one of their names on a deed to property. That tax exemption traditionally applied to married couples and family members transferring properties among themselves.

The challenge to the ordinances was filed by William Devlin of the Urban Family Council, which opposes same-sex marriage, and several other individuals.

Nutter hopes an appeal to the Supreme Court in the life-partners case would succeed. If not, he said, he will try to achieve the ordinance's intent some other way.

"If we need to take a different approach to get to the same goal, which is nondiscrimination," Nutter said, "then we will do it."