NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!
Posted on 03/26/2006 5:09:59 PM PST by Crackingham
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 extending marriage benefits to unmarried couples.
Four municipalities in metro Atlanta have followed the city's lead in extending benefits to unmarried couples: DeKalb County, Fulton County, Decatur and, in June, East Point.
According to the national gay rights organization the Human Rights Campaign, about 130 city and county governments, and 11 states, grant health benefits to domestic partners. In Colorado and Alaska, legislators are debating passage of domestic partnership benefits laws.
Atlanta City Councilwoman Anne Fauver, who authored the measure, campaigned last fall on the promise to expand the city's domestic partnership benefits.
The Atlanta City Council could pass it unanimously little uproar from opponents because the battle over domestic rights already had been won, said Jack Senterfitt, staff attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which advocates for gay rights.
"A lot of people just assumed that, with domestic partnership benefits, that included pensions," said Senterfitt. "This is really about just tying up the loose ends."
But just because there was no outcry over the action doesn't mean everyone approves, said Sadie Fields, state chairman of Christian Coalition of Georgia. "We are against giving benefits to unmarried couples," she said. "Regardless of how the mayor or the culture of the city council attempts to redefine marriage, it can not be redefined as God intended it. It's the union of one man and one woman and intended for procreation."
Last week in Atlanta, Ken Gillett, deputy director of the City of Atlanta Office of Parks, became one of the first city employees to sign up for the pension program that will make his partner of 33 years, Ken Kreuzburg, 55, eligible to collect in the event of Gillett's death.
The couple already had signed up for the city's health benefits. The pension, said Gillett, will protect them financially as if, despite state law, they were married.
"We are truly in an enduring relationship," said Gillett, 57. "As a part of that, we are concerned about each other's well-being in the event something happens. This allows us to look to the future and plan in a way we couldn't before."
This can't happen in Texas, because the new constitutional amendment banning "gay" marriages also prohibits local jurisdictions from recognizing any marriage like relationships that are not actually marriages defined as being between one man and one woman.
Does anyone know if this provision applies retroactively, i.e., if former employees of the city of Atlanta already receiving pensions can designate a "domestic partner" as a pension beneficiary in the event of their deaths?
Gee, does 'domestic partner' also apply to non same-sex couples who live together? Didn't think so, it's only for another 'protected class' of sickos.
"Gee, does 'domestic partner' also apply to non same-sex couples who live together? Didn't think so"
If that's true it would completely change my opinion above - it is totally wrong to discriminate against unmarried heterosexual couples because of their sexual orientation.
What if my daughter and I live together for 20 years and financially support each other and jointly run our household? Does that make us "domestic partners"? We should be entitled to the same benefits extended to two men living together. This is opening a can of worms, but it should apply across the board, not just to a selected "class".
Signed, Angry Heterosexual Christian Working Taxpaying White Male :-)
Government has so much money to burn, you see, that it must look for new reasons to bestow benefits on people. Have sex, get benefits. Gee, it's kind of like the government is the pimp.
Ahhh, have a heart. Hollyweird has told us how hard it is out there being a pimp. :-)
Oprah and Hitlery. Thanks a lot. You know that you owe me a keyboard now. :-)
I never watch Opra so never have seen that picture before. It has to be pretty old by the looks of Hillary.
Thanks for the ping!
It turned out very good! The frame is red on the forum and blue here in the comment box. I never remember why that can happen!!
LOL! I've got your ice right here! Kiss it! :-)
Hillary said that Suha photo op was the biggest mistake of her 2000 campaign -
Her handlers say that Hillary is going to erase those photos from view and the internet - as they are the big negative as she runs in 2008 -
Whoops!
Now they are all over the Red states and even the Blue states -
Not that anyone will be uploading them and emailing them to all of their liberal dingbat friends and relatives now.....
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