Councilor Angela Mansfield has introduced an ordinance to open up city-county employee benefits to qualifying domestic partnerships. Mansfield mentions that most Fortune 500 companies offer domestic partnership benefits and this is simply responding to how business is done and how society has changed.
What I find funny is the comments section. I've noticed that my Republican friends often talk about "running a government like a business." Well, it turns out that businesses are already doing this as are many other local and state governments. So using their logic, this is just the local government finally catching up to how employee benefits are handled nowadays.
And while the article mentions that there should be bi-partisan support,with Mayor Greg Ballard likely to sign it, I expect this ordinance to be met with bi-partisan opposition as well.
Just some food for thought.
On another note, it has been a while and I've got a couple posts lined up for the next few days.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
14 comments:
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I have the solution that should meet the conservatives' concerns. They mask their problem with this issue with "budget" concerns and the "sanctity of marriage" argument. Then, let's go a step further. Only offer benefits to legally married heterosexual couples. But, if those couples break the "sanctity of marriage" through adultery or divorce, then make them pay back the benefits they received in the past. After all, what good conservative policymaker who receives these benefits would ever get divorced or get caught in an adulterous scandal?
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen a study done, but I highly doubt that more than a small fraction of businesses offer domestic partnership benefits. I think you're assuming otherwise as a premise to your article. It will be interesting to see the changes same sex marriage brings. I bet many of those companies that offer domestic partner benefits will drop those benefits which I believe were more about providing a marital type benefit to same sex couples.
ReplyDeleteMansfield in the article specifically says Fortune 500. And I tend to believe that considering a number of the larger companies in Indiana, such as Simon PRoperty and Lilly, do.
DeleteAnd I disagree that domestic partnerships would discontinue if and when same-sex marriage is legal. Trends show that younger Americans are marrying later in life. It doesn't mean they are sleeping around, but they are in monogomous, long term relationships for years before actually marrying. Now there is some debate in the polling if this trend is actually rising, or if there's less of a social stigma nowadays and that people are more willing to admit it. But I don't think domestic partnerships are going anywhere.
Matt, I could be wrong, but I think those domestic partner benefits are there because we don't have same sex marriage. I think once you have it, the reason for those domestic partner benefits goes away. You are going down a slippery slope if you just start offering benefits to employees' roommates. Are we going to start investigating as to whether they are living together or actually intimate with one another? At least with marriage, you have a formal, legally binding committment to each other. So the problem of proof is not very nearly as great.
ReplyDeleteRoommates don't have children together or have joint bank accounts, and don't typically vacation together either.
DeleteI'm not saying fraud should be dismissed, but there are ways to prevent it. Companies, cities, and states have set up domestic partnership registries to ensure they are only going to actual people in a long term committed relationship.
Now once same-sex marriage is widely legal, I fully agree that this discussion should be re-visited. But in the mean time, I think domestic partnership benefits will be a good way for some of the religious folks on the fence about same-sex marriage (and LGBT people in general) that the world won't end if those relationships are recognized.
Domestic Partnership Registries?
ReplyDeleteIs that like the Marriage Registries at the Clerk's Office or the National Sex Offender Registry with the Sheriff?
I worked for Indiana University. Years ago, after they had started their domestic partner benefits program, I went to HR to discuss getting the benefits. When they discovered I, a male, was asking about getting my live in girlfriend on my benefits, I was told domestic partner benefits only were available to same sex domestic partners. According to their HR website, this is still the case. I know some companies and governments provide these benefits to any couple, same sex or otherwise, who fill out some forms and/or submit proof of co-habitation. I fully believe that once same sex marriage is legal, they will pull these benefits. Hopefully they will then go one step further and provide benefits for those in multiple spouse relationships. And in the future, maybe those relationships will be sanctioned as legal by government as well.
ReplyDeleteMultiple spouses doesn't really do anything to benefit society since marriage, as an institution, is to encourage families and stabilize relationships. That can't be done with polygamy, which is typically associated with relationships that aren't based with full consent and incestuous relationships.
DeleteNo wonder IU had to discontinued most of those golden benefits after someone finally calculated the actual cost.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your humor about in the future supporting employees harems, room mates, and people who just want all the benefits of marriage, but not the commitments.
No fault divorce doesn't make marriages any more of a committment. Just means you have a piece of paper you paid $20 for at the Clerk's office.
DeleteI'm unfamiliar with IU's specific domestic partnership benefits. But hey, if these benefits are too costly, then I'd assume everyone would be willing to cut them for married couples as well, right?
Marriage with no fault divorce still means you split all assets 50/50. ALL assets, not a $20 filing fee.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like dating were you just call it off, take your stuff, and part ways.
That's why you call it MARRIAGE.
I was specifically referring to comittment, not the division of assets after a marriage ends. Relationships sometime end, regardless of if the couple is married or not. There are married couples who last for 4 days. There are people who have been in long term, monogamous relationships for 10 years. I think it is degrading those people who have been living together for years, have joint accounts, even raise children as loving parents, and just throw them into people who are "just dating".
DeleteAnd that's really meaningless to a discussion on domestic partnership benefits. Divorce and asset splitting is the result of marriage and marriage laws. Domestic partner benefits are only between those of the employee and the employee's family with the employer. And if an employer wants to do that, hey, that's the free market at work!
Sorry your offended, but marriage is the highest level of legal and religious commitment to most people.
DeleteThe goal is a total monogamous relationship, for life, creating a stable social and financial platform for each other and to raise children.
What is being proposed is breaking this social contract and framework.
I'm not offended. I enjoy talking to readers of the blog.
DeleteBut I don't see why a marriage is necessary to have a "total monogamous relationship, for life, creating stable social and financial platform for each other and to raise children." There are couples doing that, without being married, right now. And I don't see a reason, as far as benefits being provided, to differentiate between people who have a civil marriage license vs those that don't.
Rest assured, I do believe people who apply for domestic partnership benefits need evidence they actually live together, plan on it, and maybe even need a great amount of evidence to verify it is all legit. But if couple A has been together for 6 years but not married, and couple B has been married for 2 weeks, why should B get the benefits that A doesn't?
Also, on a related note:
In France, civil unions are more popular among new couples than marriage: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/europe/16france.html?pagewanted=all