P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times
(07-08) 04:00 PDT Kalamazoo, Mich. -- When Jerome Post and
his partner, Paul Renwick, decided to leave California and move here six years
ago, the couple wrestled with a common family concern: One of them needed a job
that offered good health insurance.
The pair were drawn to the area by family and the desire for a slower pace of
life. Plus, said Post, the city since 2000 has offered health coverage to
employees and their same-sex partners.
"It's what convinced me to apply to work for the city," said Post, 47,
assistant director of human resources for Kalamazoo. His partner Renwick, who is
semi-retired, has chronic health problems.
"It's also what convinced me to take this job over offers from other
companies," Post said.
But earlier this year, city staff learned that such benefits violate state
law: In February, a Michigan appellate court ruled that public employers may not
offer such coverage because of the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage.
City officials, told by the state attorney general's office that their
benefits program is illegal, have been scrambling to find a solution.
"The public has said, time and again, that they support benefits for same-sex
couples," said Bobby Hopewell, vice mayor of Kalamazoo. "We are a good employer,
a fair employer and offering these kinds of benefits is only fair."
Countered Matt Frendewey, spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox:
"What we challenge is the way their domestic-partner benefits are designed. ...
In Michigan, marriage is recognized as a union between a man and a woman."
By creating special employee benefits that are aimed at gay couples in
committed relationships, Frendewey said, "The city is recognizing them as a
marriage. And that violates the law."
The clash between local policies and state laws puts a growing number of
public employers at the uncomfortable center of the ongoing debate over gay
marriage. Cities and public schools say the benefits are necessary to make them
attractive when competing for top-notch employees.
The current fight in Michigan dates to 2004 with the passage of Proposal 2,
which banned gay marriage. Advocates for the proposal insisted that the measure
was focused only on clarifying the definition of marriage, discounting critics'
fears that it would be the first step in an erosion of gay rights.
But political pressure on legislators and legal challenges to the benefits
public employers offer to same-sex couples soon followed, based on the idea that
it was a de facto recognition of a civil union, which the state of Michigan does
not allow.
In March 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a lawsuit
against the state, the attorney general and Gov. Jennifer Granholm that asked a
state court to clarify Proposal 2, and rule that it does not prohibit public
employers from offering domestic partnership benefits. The state Supreme Court
has agreed to hear the case later this year, but also is allowing the appellate
ruling to take effect immediately.
The trend has sparked a flurry of legal action elsewhere, including heated
debates in Nebraska, Kentucky and Ohio.
Last month, Kentucky Attorney General Gregory Stumbo issued an opinion that
the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky were violating state
law, and that the colleges must stop offering domestic partner benefits --
regardless of whether the couple is gay or straight.
Both critics and advocates of such benefit plans are tracking a legal fight
in Nebraska, where a U.S. appellate court last year upheld the state amendment
preventing government employers from providing benefits to same-sex couples.
And in Ohio, Republican state Rep. Tom Brinkman filed a suit against Miami
University of Ohio in 2005, charging that its policy offering benefits to
employees' same-sex domestic partners violates the state Constitution banning
civil unions.
Kalamazoo, though, thinks it has found a solution. Late last month, the
city's commissioners voted to skirt the constitutional limitation -- by altering
the wording of an 18-month pilot health insurance program.
Instead of "domestic partners," the new "other qualified adult" program
provides medical and dental insurance to a person close to the employee -- and
who meets a list of seven criteria, including having lived together for at least
a year "with the intent to do so indefinitely"; have been designated as the
primary beneficiary of either a life insurance policy or will; and either own a
residence, a vehicle or have joint financial accounts.
The pilot program, slated to begin Aug. 1, is taking a cue from the
University of Michigan, which faced the same hurdles as the city. It instituted
a similar policy that became effective this year.