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Department of Human Resource Management Commonwealth of Virginia Health Benefits Program [1 VAC 55 ‑ 20] Public Comment Forum On this Action: This action will amend section 1VAC 55 320(E) to include adults, other than spouses and incapacitated adult children, as participants in the Health Benefits Plan for State Employees NOIRA Stage - View the regulatory documents In Progress! Opened on 11/23/2009 and closes at 11:59pm on 12/23/2009 More about public comment forums Enter a comment

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Same-sex domestic partners would have all of the rights and benefits that Washington offers married couples under a measure passed by the state Senate.

Santa Ana, CA (AP) -- People who mistakenly believe they are registered as domestic partners in California have the same rights as those who fulfilled terms of the state's Domestic Partner Act, an appeals court ruled. There is "no sound reason" to deprive persons of their rights if they "reasonably believed" they had registered as domestic partners, a panel of the state 4th District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. That reverses an Orange County court ruling which denied a gay man's 2006 petition to dissolve a domestic partnership. The man and his partner signed and notarized a 2003 partnership agreement,...

Brazen Bureaucrats Proposed health coverage for domestic partners violates separation of powers By Clint Bolick Extending health benefits to domestic partners of government employees is a fiercely contentious issue. Arizona voters decided last year not to prohibit such benefits, but efforts to create them have come up empty in the state legislature. No problem, says the Department of Administration, a state executive agency: we'll mandate insurance coverage for domestic partners of state employees and retirees by bureaucratic fiat. And it did just that in a proposed rule filed last November 30 to expand the term "dependent" to include domestic partners....

Lesbian Muslim Terror Suspects in Texas Arrested; Explosives at House Detonated, Terrorized Neighbors, Tested Police Response July 17, 2007 By Debbie Schlussel How many chances do two Muslim women get to violate the law with terrorist threats and test the system? Many chances, apparently, if they're "Kimberly" Asma Al-Homsi and Aisha Abdul-Rahman Hamad of Arlington, Texas. Remember them? As I told you in April, Al-Homsi, a Syrian with dual citizenship, was friends with Wadih El-Hage, Osama Bin Laden's personal secretary, convicted of the two 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. "Kimberly" Asma Al-Homsi & Aisha Abdul-Rahman Hamad: Lesbian Muslim...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - A domestic-partnership bill for gay and lesbian couples that cleared the state Legislature on Tuesday was hailed by supporters and criticized by opponents as a first step toward same-sex marriage. The House passed the measure by a 63-35 vote after a rather tame hourlong debate. Two Democrats opposed the bill and three Republicans supported it. The Senate passed the legislation last month. It now goes to the governor, who is expected to sign it. "From the Palouse to Alki Point, this bill provides real relief," state Rep. Joe McDermott, D-Seattle, told lawmakers during the debate. "If you've...

Local preachers rallying voters in support of Tuesday’s advisory vote were offset by local “vote no” advocates who showed up at the Friday morning press conference at the Noel Wien Library with placards in hand. Former state Sen. Ralph Seekins, representing Alaska Family Action, a pro-family organization formed a year ago and based on Dr. James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” principles, took the podium to introduce an assembly of ministers from Bethel Baptist, Bible Baptist, Mount Pleasant Baptist, Door of Hope, Fairbanks Assembly of God, and New Jerusalem Church of God in Christ. Seekins said the advisory measure doesn’t...

The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled today that California's marriage laws banning same-sex marriage do not violate the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians.

SACRAMENTO - Debate over a bill that would let registered domestic partners file joint state tax returns devolved into a shouting match Wednesday as Assembly members accused each other of intolerance and one Republican said his gay colleagues live a deviant lifestyle. Discussion of the bill began to heat up when Assemblyman Jay La Suer, R-La Mesa, called the measure "part of the homosexual agenda." He said it would negatively affect California's children by teaching them "that this is an acceptable lifestyle." Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Sherman Oaks, countered that "the real homosexual agenda is simple equality and freedom from discrimination."...

IRS plays politics with tax code Tortured logic behind rulings on domestic partners, transgender surgery Those who suspect that bias might have deprived "Brokeback Mountain" of the best picture Oscar and hobbled "Transamerica's" consideration might feel the same about the IRS' recent treatment of domestic partners and transgender people. So should everybody. The two IRS rulings may not seem troublesome at first. The IRS ruled that, when filing individual returns, each registered domestic partner in California must report his or her own individual salary, rather than half of both partners' combined income (sometimes called income splitting). It also ruled that...

When Atlanta sought to institute domestic partnership health benefits for city employees during the 1990s, a battle raged in and out of court for six years before the measure took effect. Last week, when Mayor Shirley Franklin extended those benefits to include city pensions, the noise was no louder than the sound of her pen scratching her signature on a new city law. While the issue of gay marriage is being fought in courtrooms in at least seven states — and in Georgia in 2004, voters overwhelming passed an amendment making gay marriage illegal — governments are quietly and increasingly...

Registered domestic partners will continue to get the same tax benefits as married couples who transfer property under a recent court ruling that upheld a 2003 decision granting that right. The ruling last week by the Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Jack Sapunor upheld the California Board of Equalization decision to extend to domestic partners a property tax exemption originally written for spouses. Under tax code dating back to 1979, people who inherit property after the death of their spouses are exempt from the category of "change in ownership," which would subject them to reassessment of the property's value. The...

California's registered domestic partners should report their pay on federal tax forms the way single people do, rather than using methods available to married couples, according to an internal memo the Internal Revenue Service released Monday. The clarification is the first guidance from the IRS in the wake of a sweeping state law that took effect in 2005, giving gays and lesbians many of the rights of married couples. The news should ease the confusion facing the state's 71,000 partners with the April 17 tax-filing deadline just weeks away. But the federal agency's response wasn't the answer that gay and...

SAN FRANCISCO — A supervisor is calling on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a bill that will extend some property-tax protections to registered domestic partners. Currently, when home ownership passes from one domestic partner to another, due to death or any other reason, the home is reassessed for property taxes, even if it's held in a joint ownership. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Carole Migden, will prohibit such reassessment. Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval is urging the governor to sign the bill in the wake of the governor's comments last week that he intends to veto a gay marriage bill. "This...

Rob Carpick says he thought he might persuade state lawmakers to allow the University of Wisconsin to begin offering domestic partner benefits on the basis of simple economics. So Carpick, who is gay, wrote the co-chairman of the Legislature's budget committee earlier this month to explain that he's brought in more than $2.5 million in research grants during the five years he's been an assistant professor of engineering at the UW-Madison. In an e-mail to Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah, Carpick noted that Gov. Jim Doyle estimated the cost of providing full benefits to domestic partners - unmarried heterosexual couples as...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Like many gay couples, Brian Cornell and Alberto Rulloda long ago established a legal framework for their relationship to match their commitment to each other. They drew up wills naming the other as beneficiary, property agreements and powers of attorney, among other documents. The couple of 27 years wanted to spell out the specifics that would have been presumed if they were married. Come Saturday, such improvised arrangements will be less necessary for them and nearly 29,000 other California couples -- the majority same-sex partners. A law taking effect with the new year gives gay couples who...

ATLANTA -- The mayor is threatening a country club with up to $90,000 in fines for refusing to extend spousal benefits to the partners of gay members. Mayor Shirley Franklin said last week in a letter to the Druid Hills Golf Club that the club violated Atlanta's human rights ordinance, which requires businesses to treat domestic partners registered with the city as married couples. Franklin said she is ordering the city solicitor to fine the club $500 a day for up to six months -- a total of $90,000 -- unless the rule is changed.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Sprint Corp. will extend health insurance and other employee benefits to domestic partners beginning in 2005. The Overland Park, Kan.-based telecommunications company, with 61,000 employees nationwide, disclosed the program to employees this week as part of a regular review of changes to benefits for next year. The expanded coverage would take effect Jan. 1. Sprint spokeswoman Jennifer Bosshardt said the move was not connected to criticism the company received earlier this month from the Human Rights Campaign. The gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group ridiculed Sprint for providing insurance to employees' pets but not domestic partners....

Pets, not partners, favored, group says By SUZANNE KING The Kansas City Star Sprint Corp. was one of four Fortune 500 companies under fire Wednesday for offering health insurance for employees' pets but not domestic partners. Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group in Washington, issued a news release condemning Sprint, Home Depot, Waste Management and Ecolab for their policies. “It was immediately evident to us that it was out of kilter that a company would do this,” said Kim Mills, the group's education director. Sprint has a relationship with a pet insurance company that allows employees to buy that insurance...

Silicon Valley Capital Recognizes Gay Marriages SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Legislators in San Jose, California, the center of Silicon Valley, agreed on Tuesday night to recognize gay marriage licenses granted by San Francisco and other cities. The 8-1 vote by the city council after hours of debate follows an order on Monday by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to give city employees in same-sex marriages the same benefits as heterosexual marriages. "We believe it is right and just that employee benefits provided to spouses of city employees should be applied evenhandedly in accordance with our firm and successful commitment to ending...