Prop. 8 vote could harm domestic partners

You might think, as I did, that a story with this headline, would be a scare story about how passing CA's Prop 8 would lead to the end of domestic partner benefits. But you would be mistaken. The story actually argues that defeating Prop 8 and enshrining same sex marriage permanently into law, could spell the end of domestic partner benefits. Or at least, serious complications for the future of dp benefits. How so, you may ask? Because the status of people who CAN marry, but choose not to, is unclear.

Experts on the issue suggest the state has three choices if Proposition 8 is defeated: Leave domestic partnerships alone, eliminate them or expand them to include all unmarried couples that want them.
“It's reasonable to say it will raise other sets of legal questions. . . . We will have to resolve them,” said Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, a lesbian who has joined the domestic partnership registry. ....
Some Massachusetts companies have dropped domestic partnership benefits, noting that same-sex couples can choose to marry. Other businesses have expanded domestic partnership programs to include opposite-sex couples.

“Many employees in Massachusetts have found that, since the legalization of marriage, employers often offer health care and other benefits only to married couples, meaning that a simple domestic partnership registration is no longer sufficient to obtain benefits for a partner,” said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for the national advocacy group Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Actually, I have been wondering this for some time: once gays are allowed to marry, will the gay advocacy groups start encouraging gays to marry, and discouraging cohabitation, pre-marital sex, non-marital sex, etc? After all, they have been telling us that they want gay marriage in order to get the "conservative" benefits of marriage: ie. creating greater stability, reducing promiscuity and so on.

But I digress. The coalition around gay marriage may very well splinter on the issue of domestic partnerships in states that allow gay marriage.

Thomas Coleman, executive director of Unmarried America, which advocates for opposite-sex couples and single adults, said he doubts the Legislature would make changes to the domestic partnership program.
“Many liberals and moderates would probably be uncomfortable in replacing the law (and) telling gay couples to 'get married or you won't have any rights,' ” Coleman said....
“We would be glad to see domestic partnerships opened to all heterosexual couples, not just seniors,” said Shannon Minter, attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “However, it is difficult to imagine why any heterosexual couple other than seniors protecting federal benefits from a prior marriage would voluntarily choose a less protective, second-class status.”

CA Same Sex marriage chronology

I have submitted an article on the CA ssm ruling, so I can't say much until it appears in print (make that, in electrons.) Anyhow, in the course of researching that article, I came across this chronology of key events in CA's policy march toward same sex marriage.
I discovered that one of the facts on the list is not quite right.

— 2002: Domestic partners given additional rights under state law, including the right to draft wills for each other ...

OK, that doesn't make sense. Do I have the right to draft a will for my husband? I don't think so. I think this statement is referring to AB2216 in 2002, which provided for intestate succession for domestic partners. That is, if a domestic partner dies without a will, their estate will be distributed to their surviving partner and any blood relatives, on the same terms as married couples. I think that is what the note in the Mercury News chronology is referring to.
You can get information about AB 2216 by going here, and clicking on the 2001-2002 session on the drop-down menu. Then type in either AB 2216 or just "domestic partners," and this bill should pop up.

Response to the University of Kentucky Kernel

Last month, I visited the University of Kentucky and gave a speech entitled, "A skeptical Look at Domestic Partner Benefits." That speech was well-received by many in the community, and may have even played some role in the ensuing debate in the state legislature.
However, the article in the student newspaper was not very well-informed. I have my doubts as to whether the author even attended the lecture, since she did not seem to know what time of day it was held. So I wrote a reply to the editor of the Kentucky Kernel (no, I'm not making this up: that is the name of the student newspaper.) But they have not published it as far as I know. So, to set the record straight, I am publishing the letter here.

To the editor,

I write in response to the February 15, 2007 article entitled, "Legislators, speaker 'skeptical' of benefits.” As the “speaker,” I consider myself qualified to know what I said and didn’t say. For benefit of anyone who was unable to attend the lecture, I have posted the entire talk, complete with footnotes, on my website:

http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/articles/domestic_partner.pdf

People can decide for themselves whether I “just talked about what I felt” or whether my factual claims have empirical support.

As for the questions from the audience, several students seemed to want to minimize the importance of the research on cohabitation. So let me reiterate: years of research on cohabitation among opposite sex couples has shown convincingly that cohabitation is not equivalent to marriage and is in fact, inferior to marriage. Domestic violence, including child abuse, is more common, and relationship satisfaction is lower among cohabitors than among married couples. In response to one question, I agreed that these effects are stronger among people with lower levels of education and earnings, but the independent effect of cohabitation persists even after taking account of income and education.

Perhaps the law students in the audience believe that as educated people of relatively high income, the impact of cohabitation will be negligible in their own experience. Maybe you think you’ll be able to dodge the statistical bullet. But the University’s plan would subsidize not only cohabiting couples among the faculty, but among the clerks and cooks and custodians of the University.

There is nothing “progressive” or “tolerant” about a policy that provides ideological gratification to the rich while harming the poor. Encouraging opposite sex cohabitation, a lifestyle known to be destructive, is bad public policy. The taxpayers of Kentucky should decline to pay for the University’s domestic partners proposal.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Roback Morse