Should Employers Provide Employee Benefits for Same-sex Partners of Employees?

When the topic of providing health insurance benefits to gay or lesbian partners has been cussed and discussed, the discussions always seem to bog down in the side issues of right and wrong of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. These are moral issues and have nothing to do with this particular issue. The issue is: who should be allowed to be included on the employees health insurance plan period; no emotional side issues.

I am going to relate what happened in my city because from news reports this seems to be the way the issue is often being handled when city officials decide to extend health benefits to non-family members and know there will be little if any public support for the action.

Eligibility for employee health care coverage has always been simple: the only people eligible for coverage under the employees health insurance plan is the employee's immediate family. That is, wife or husband and children to age 18 or 23 if in college. No aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws or parents because they are indeed family, but not immediate family. Neither may health benefits be extended to one who is not related in any way to the employee.

Our City Manager and Mayor have opened this eligibility up to the "partners" of gay and lesbian employees. Or, more accurately, to individuals not legally related to the employee by blood or a legal contract. There is a little clause thrown in to the city's agreement that the employee must sign stating that the relationship is "a committed relationship" and "the partners are financially co-dependent", but just as their sexual relationship has no bearing on the real issue neither does their commitment or financial co-dependency. No matter how "committed" or how "financially co-dependent" the partners or live-in companions may be they are still unrelated by the blood relationship of siblings or by the legally approved contract of marriage which are the only two criteria that define "immediate family".

What our two city officials have done is open the city's obligation of employee health insurance coverage to a non-family entity, and by implication to virtually anyone the employee should wish to designate as a "dependent" and willingly pay the employees share of the tax payer subsidized health care insurance for that person. This could be all of the named family members listed above, friends, neighbors and the man down the block! But the real kicker give away is that our Mayor under the City Charter doesn't need any city council-men's approval because once the budget is passed he can act on this on his own authority as mayor. This may also be the case in your city.

This extended coverage is not a novel idea either in the country or in North Carolina. My city was the second city in the state to establish such a policy. Those living in the liberal thinking University bastions of Durham, Chapel Hill and Carrboro were the first local governments to do so. Durham County and Orange County have also extended benefits to domestic partners. The legality of Chapel Hill and Carrboro's policies have been challenged, but have been upheld by a superior court judge in Orange County. The law has not been tested by a court with statewide jurisdiction as of this writing.

The policies generally allow employees to add unmarried partners and their children to employer health plans and allow unmarried employees to take sick leave to care for their partner or family members. In the case of Chapel Hill, it is specified that the coverage is for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples who live together in a relationship of indefinite duration, have an exclusive mutual commitment to each other and can demonstrate financial interdependence to qualify for the benefits.

Our Mayor did not undertake this mission without asking some questions and trying to get some clarification from the state for his proposal. His first question concerned the North Carolina law banning co-habitation. It was settled when a state court decision was made declaring North Carolina's 201-year ban on cohabitation to be unconstitutional. Citing a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Texas sodomy law, State Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford ruled that Debora Hobbs' constitutional rights were violated when the 911 dispatcher was fired from her job at the Pender County Sheriff's Office because she chose to live with her boyfriend.

I have no idea what Texas law against sodomy has to do with couples in North Carolina co-habiting, but apparently North Carolina State Supreme Court Judge Benjamin Alford sees a connection. Go figure. I truly believe this ruling could successfully be challenged if anyone cared to do so. The fact is in our society today co-habitation without benefit of marriage is accepted so this ruling is not likely to be challenged. But how our Mayor was able to connect this ruling to extending Health Care insurance benefits to co-habiting individuals is clearly baffling.

At any rate, our Mayor's first concern was answered, but he first intended to only extend the coverage to same sex couples since opposite sex couples could get married and comply with the original provisions if they want to. The plan was quickly offered to co-habiting same sex couples when City Hall erupted like Mount St. Helena! And well it should have because the plan was exclusionary. Which proves my point that once you open the doors and dispense with the time honored two definitive aspects of family then you have made any and all relationships equally eligible.

The Mayor also asked the State Attorney General's office, "Would it be a violation of equal protection under the federal and state constitutions for the city to choose to offer domestic partner health benefits to same-sex couples while denying the benefit to unmarried opposite sex couples." The North Carolina State Attorney General's Office refused to offer any guidance on this subject.

So now we have breached the only barriers and definitions of family health care coverage to include persons and their children who are not related by blood or by legal marriage contract to the employees. There is absolutely nothing to stop the employee from placing anyone at all on his policy. He has merely to pay the premium for them and this would show a financial dependence. And if he continues this obligation of paying the premium for anyone's insurance this would be all that was legally needed to show a commitment.

As for the "live with" clause: what does "live with" really mean? in one space? or could paying as little as $1 a month on the rent and going over for dinner once a month qualify as "living with" granny and pops? and why shouldn't an employee be able to add a person and their children he/she is having a long term affair with and can show commitment and financial dependency but does not share the same space with? I think it is safe to say he/she certainly "sleeps" with the person and could eat in their residence and could pay that $1 per month rent. It is certainly feasible that a man could then have his legal family (wife by marriage and children) covered as well as his mistress and her children. Why not? It would fit the criteria that has to be met to receive this tax payer subsidized health care insurance.

What I am saying is that once you shatter the time honored definition of dependent or family relationship then you open it up to a whole host of new configurations. This would make anyone eligible for tax payer subsidized city employee health insurance. Aunts, uncles, cousins, kissin' cousins, grand parents, parents and in-laws. Also conceivable as eligible are neighbors, homeless people, orphans, friends and Joe the bartender at the employee's favorite watering hole.

This is the real issue here folks! Not the pros and cons of same-sex marriage or homosexuality or whether or not people need insurance because of the high cost of medical care, but this opening of a Pandora's Box by redefining "family".

The re-defining of the term "family" is a matter for the courts, or more democratically, the ballot box. And until "partners" are given the legal definition of family my rights as a tax payer are being violated when I am forced to pay for non-family members insurance. When companies and businesses offer these benefits to their employees then I am an unwilling contributor through the higher prices I must pay for goods and services of these businesses. I have not, and will not, judge these actions on a moral or personal or religious basis in an open forum because the issue will not be judged on this basis in a court of law. And if the issue comes to the ballot box then each person will make a decision based on their beliefs whether religious or secular.

I would like to point out that while the public is absorbed with the issue of same-sex marriage many businesses, cities and counties all over the country are making headway in dissolving the tradition definition of family by the same method used in my city. The more companies, cities, counties and states that breech the traditional definition of family by offering benefits to those outside of the family unit there is then the closer our country is to making the issue of same-sex marriage a forgone conclusion appearing to have the population's tacit approval and needing only the legalities to make it the law of the land.

Do you know what your city and county are doing?