Newspaper Page Text
NEWS ANALYSIS
Two Cities Help Shape Domestic Partnership Rights
by John Zeh
When a handful of heterosexuals
joined more than a hundred gay men and
lesbians to certify their “domestic partner
ships” on Valentine’s Day in San
Francisco, the couples called attention to
key campaigns around America to rede
fine family.
The bay side city’s precedent-setting
law, passed in 1982 by the Board of
Supervisors but vetoed by former Mayor
Diane Feinstein, was revived by voters in
a November referendum. The certificates
of commitment do not carry tangible ben
efits, but city workers who pay a $35 fee
for recognition of their relationships could
win extended health benefits if the Board
of Supervisors approves step two of the
domestic partnership proposal.
Washington, D.C.’s City Council is
expected to follow San Francisco’s lead
by registering significant others for future
Domestic Partnership protections.
Activists in the nation’s capital hailed
the February victory. “Absolutely, it’s a
positive step,” said Christine Riddiough,
who worked to support a D.C. commis
sion empowered by Council to conduct a
one-year study of the issues. She headed
an ongoing Coalition for Domestic
Partnership Benefits.
But now, she said, CDPB’s group’s
work is “just beginning,” despite “fairly
sweeping support” for Domestic
Partnership (DP) laws she found on
Council and among other top D.C. offi
cials.
Riddiough is one of several gay, les
bian, and progressive activists across the
country who have taken time from other
important pursuits to campaign for
extended-family rights.
Their struggle was supported by an
aide to new D.C. City Council chair John
Wilson at a recent forum, who assured
over 70 activists that he would support
legislation to redefine relationships. The
session provided analysis of campaigns
here and around the U.S. to extend bene
fits guaranteed married heterosexuals to
people living in diverse, extended families
or significant-other relationships.
The definition of what constitutes a
family has been opened up to debate as
pressure builds to extend the old, nuclear
notion, which excludes many unmarried
people living together in supportive situa
tions.
A fall 1989 poll by Massachusetts
Mutual Insurance Co.—which provides
health plans for national citizen lobbies
such as Clean Water Action—showed that
74 percent of respondents defined family
as people who love and care for each
other, “period.” And more than half of
people surveyed by Time agreed that part
ners of lesbians and gay men should get
health and life insurance benefits under
their significant other’s policies.
Homosexuals constituting the majority
on the Council’s Commission on
Domestic Partnership Benefits for City
Employees haggled over how to define
unique households, conceded chair Judith
Nedrow. But they and others on the
diverse commission managed to “distill
different points of view” into a consensus.
Council chair Wilson is examining
what laws are necessary to implement the
panel’s recommendations, while he bal
ances “serious” budgetary constraints,
said aide Heidi Sorensen.
One initial step will be following San
Francisco’s lead by legislating DP regis
tration through affidavit, with “fairly
JON ZEH
small costs expected,” she said. And
Wilson may seek an interim solution to a
health insurance issue complicated by the
District’s unique relation with Congress,
letting D.C. government’s new-hires pay
additional costs of premiums for their
DPs.
Another Commission idea Sorensen
said Wilson found “especially intriguing”
is tax incentives for private employers
who offer DPs health insurance benefits,
which may be tricky to implement
through legislation.
The session was called by a new affini
ty group, Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of
Washington (GAYLAW), which wants
benefits made available to all who seek
them, not just D.C. employees.
Domestic partnerships, according to
Ivy Young, director of the Lesbian and
Gay Families Project, involve relation
ships with these qualities:
• neither partner is married nor related
in a way that would bar marriage,
• fraud is absent,
• each is 18 or older,
• basic living expenses and the home
are shared,
• each declares under oath that the part
nership exists and that neither has signed
a previous DP contract within six months.
“People come together based on care,
consideration, and need,” said Young, “in
the same loving relationships we define as
family.” Her project is sponsored by the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and
the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
She also serves on the board of Deep Dish
TV, a progressive grassroots-to-satellite
system for distributing cutting-edge video
productions about critical social issues.
Christine Riddiough: “We must
Figure out ways to lobby members of
Congress who don't feel a need to
assuage D.C. residents [about adopt
ing domestic partner legislation].”
DC’s efforts to implement DP bene
fits face major problems beyond bud
getary issues, including Capitol Hill
homophobes. For example, Riddiough
cautioned that if two D.C. gay men who
have filed suit for a marriage license win
their case, Congress could take retribution
by nullifying D.C.’s comprehensive
Human Rights Ordinance, which gives
homosexuals equity with heteros,
DP issues deserve support, said Young,
because they are “a thread” of America’s
mix that must be faced more seriously.
“Family diversity is a key issue for the
decade to come.”
Besides insurance, daily life can create
enormous problems for nontraditional
families not protected by policies of both
public and private sectors, such as medi
cal care and visitation, parenting and cus
tody, wrongful death suits, survivor bene
fits, victim assistance, family discounts,
credit, housing, bereavement and sick
leave, and job relocation perks.
“We must figure out ways to lobby
members of Congress who don't feel a
need to assuage D.C. residents,” added
Riddiough, an astral-physicist who coor
dinates global warming education for the
Union of Concerned Scientists, and is co
chair of the Democratic Socialists of
America’s Feminist Commission.
Formerly president of D.C.’s powerful
Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, she also
serves on D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage
Control Board and is national vice-chair
of Democratic Socialists of America.
One idea urged by former city offi
cial Jim Zais, openly gay candidate for
Wilson’s old seat on Council, is for GAY-
LAW members and others to help docu
ment past precedents for broader family
definitions, such as ones covering food
stamp applicants and Native Americans.
Young stressed a second and third ini
tiative that could attract attention in
Atlanta and around the U.S. to boost the
cause-building allies in communities
where race, culture, ethnicity, or other fac
tors forge different family formations,
such as unmarried, hetero partners; single
parents; teen-aged; “blended”; elder fami
lies; inter-generational/adoptive/foster set
tings; disabled people who care for each
other; and working women.
Most of those constituencies, she
noted, are not organized. “Often the voice
of the lesbian and gay community must be
their voice. We speak for millions of
American families who are vulnerable
because they do not fit the traditional fam
ily mold.”
Another source of support for lobbying
Congress could come from voters in juris
dictions with existing DP provisions:
Travis County, Texas; Madison,
Wisconsin; Ithaca, New York; New York
City, New York; Alameda County,
California; Berkeley, Laguna Beach, West
Hollywood, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles
County, California; and Takoma Park,
Maryland.
The majority of public opinion is “on
our side,” she stressed, “Jesse Helms
notwithstanding.”
J*pO VIRStUIA «/, KIE WEXT TO StOtJE SOUP
• • • 672-2377 ; : .’
SALAD CAR, •
scvcitt, 7
CALtowtS,.
1 Homst.
specials. •
U'MOCfcW
TfcvmcuM.
L ‘sr<n.pgiA
II
V
A
Make Reservations NOW
for Easter Sunday
Voted "Best New Restaurant in USA"
Esquire Magazine
10th & Monroe in Piedmont Park
Resv. accepted 875-7575, Dinner 6-10, Fri & Sat 6-10:30
THE FINEST CHINESE RESTAURANT
IN THE DOWNTOWN, MIDTOWN AREA!
Twenty-five Lunch Special Items Priced
from $4.00 to $6.25 • 7 DAYS A WEEK
618 Ponce de Leon Ave. • 872-2918
(Across from the old Sears Building)
HUNAN PALACE^ COUPON
20% OFF ENTIRE CHECK
DINE IN OR TAKE OUT
Southern Voice/March 28, 1991 11