Domestic Partner benefits

Scott Moore commented on Blogtown last week about an upcoming City Council vote on whether to allow an exception to the City’s rules requiring contracting companies to provide healthcare benefits to domestic partners if they provide them for spouses. According to Scott, “Qwest actually does provide health insurance coverage to same-sex partners of its employees—it has for nearly a decade. What the company doesn’t do is provide benefits to opposite-sex partners of employees if they aren’t married. Unfortunately for Qwest, the city’s Equal Benefits Ordinance doesn’t allow for that kind of “discrimination”—it requires that domestic partners, regardless of the gender makeup of the couple, to be offered benefits.” He posed the question, does Qwest’s policy discriminate against heterosexual couples?

The City’s policy, in code section 3.100.051 adopted in May 2006, states, “It is the City’s intent, through its contracting practices outlined herein, to spend public money through its contracts to equalize, to the extent possible, the total benefits between similarly situated employees with spouses and employees with domestic partners.” “Domestic partner” means any person who is registered with his or her employer as a domestic partner, or, in the absence of an employer-provided registry, is registered as a domestic partner with a governmental body pursuant to state or local law authorizing such registration and who is in fact a current domestic partner with the person with whom that person was registered. Any internal employer registry of domestic partnership must comply with criteria for domestic partnerships specified by rule by the Bureau.” Multnomah County’s Domestic Partnership registration allows both same-sex and opposite-sex couples to register as domestic partners, as an option providing a measure of legal protections for same-sex couples who aren’t allowed to marry, and opposite-sex couples who don’t want to.

Just two weeks ago, before Scott’s article, I was perusing the OHSU nurses’ contract at work, and noticed OHSU has what turns out to be a similar policy as Qwest’s. Same-sex domestic partners and their children are given the same health care benefits as spouses and their children in families where the parents are married. Opposite sex domestic partners aren’t covered by OHSU, although the employee may purchase coverage for their opposite sex partner and the partner’s children under OHSU’s group rates.

OHSU’s policy is a direct result of the landmark Oregon Court of Appeals decision, Tanner v. OHSU. That case ruled that benefits accorded to married couples must be given to homosexual couples, under “ORS 659.030(1)(b), which prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of the sex of an employee or the sex of any other person with whom the employee associates, as well as Article I, section 20, of the Oregon Constitution, which prohibits granting privileges or immunities not equally belonging to all citizens”. But the specific case argued was same-sex couples being given the same benefits as married couples, rather than all domestic partnerships having those equal benefits. And a key factor is that same sex couples aren’t allowed to marry… with the corollary being that opposite-sex couples who choose not to marry are also choosing to forgo the benefits of marriage.

Last month’s Parman v. Oregon Circuit Court ruling that same-sex partners should have the right to be listed automatically as the second parent on the birth certificate of a child conceived by artificial insemination, follows similar reasoning. One of the tenets of the case was that since same-sex partners are not allowed to marry in Oregon, it’s not fair to deny them rights because they’re not married. See the pattern? This case is likely to prompt a Constititional crisis if the opponents of House Bill 2007, the statewide domestic partnership law passed by the Legislature this year, succeed getting a repeal vote passed in November. HB 2007 fixes some of the core discrimation found by the Court in the Parman case, which deny some citizens rights others have under the Constitution. It’s worth clicking on that link to read the first few paragraphs explaining the need for the law. The language, as well as its clarity and purpose, is beautiful. Measure 36 added the definition of marriage into the Constitution, but that doesn’t nullify other clauses requiring equal protection on everything except same-sex couples’ right to marry.

I can see the logic behind Qwest and OHSU giving health insurance by right to their employees with domestic partners who are denied the option of marrriage, while not affording those benefits to heterosexual couples who choose not to marry rather than being forced not to. It’s about the right to choose to be married – who has it, and who doesn’t.