Health benefits for gay families hinge on lawsuits
Why legal equality matters.
Health benefits for gay families hinge on lawsuits
Domestic partners worry state's definition of marriage will keep them from insurance coverage.
By Amy Lee / The Detroit News
YPSILANTI -- Hospital trips, medications and tests are a part of everyday life at the Patrick home.
Tom and Dennis Patrick are raising four children in a quaint blue farmhouse on a rural road in Ypsilanti Township. Their oldest son, Josh, 9, suffers from seizures, but doctors don't know why.
The domestic partner health benefits provided to Tom through Dennis' employer, Eastern Michigan University, allow Tom to work part time and be available to take Josh to his frequent doctor's appointments and the hospital.
But six words in a constitutional amendment Michigan voters embraced last November may disrupt the harmony of the Patrick household. The amendment, approved by 59 percent of voters, bans same-sex marriages by defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
In two lawsuits before the Michigan Court of Appeals, some argue the law also bars employers from offering health insurance to the partners of same-sex couples and their children. Others say the law was only intended to prevent marriage between gays and between lesbians; they argue the decision to offer benefits is the prerogative of employers without interference from the state.
Josh's seizures "are very scary for him and for us, too," said Tom Patrick, a part-time teacher in the Plymouth-Canton Public Schools district. "This way, one of us is with him every time he goes. ... I wouldn't be able to do that if I wasn't part time."
Fight could have big impact
In Michigan, same-sex couples head more than 15,200 households, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Some 70 public and private employers in the state -- including most major universities and colleges, several school districts and some cities -- offer health benefits to the partner and dependents of gay employees. A court decision would largely impact public employers because they are supported by taxpayer dollars. But gay rights activists fret any ruling against domestic partner benefits could have a chilling effect on private employers offering benefits in the future.
"It would be very safe to say that Michigan's current struggles would put them in the category of being a test case," said Brad Luna, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization based in Washington, D.C. "All across the country where marriage amendments are being passed, they're passed with ... a convoluted sense of what it means. States (are trying) to deal with whether (the amendments are) a narrow interpretation regarding marriage or an octopus with eight legs that reaches out and touches everything."
A decision in Michigan might impact how other state courts view similar benefits in their states. It is likely to be appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court.
At issue is the language approved by voters in Proposal 2: "To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose."
Opponents of domestic partner benefits argue that the phrase "or similar union for any purpose" bans such benefits.
"Of course the amendment is clear in that it prevents any type of benefits program from extending into a homosexual relationship," said Patrick Gillen, co-author of the marriage amendment and litigation counsel for the conservative Thomas Moore Law Center in Ann Arbor, which is suing to eliminate the benefits. "It's a labeling game, but a same-sex union under any other name is still a same-sex union and the constitutional amendment provides that same-sex unions will not be recognized for any purpose. Period."
But the American Civil Liberties Union argues differently.
"You can't say that providing health benefits is creating a marriage. It's up to employers, public and private, to decide if they want to offer those benefits to attract and retain quality employees," said Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan who is heading the fight to maintain the benefits. "Some people would like gay people to go back into the closet, but this is not what the voters wanted and this was not what they were told the amendment was about."
State employees in limbo
The debate in Michigan also has provoked a battle between two of the state's most powerful politicians -- Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Republican Attorney General Mike Cox. Granholm supports the benefits; Cox does not. Neither would comment on the issue, but a contract for state employees that includes the benefits is in limbo until the courts rule on the issue, which is expected to occur before the end of the year.
A recent EPIC/MRA poll shows 47 percent of Michigan voters believe public employers have the right to offer benefits to the partners of gay or lesbian employees, while 39 percent oppose them and 14 percent are undecided. The poll of 600 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Many public and private employers say they offer domestic partner benefits to attract and retain good employees.
"We don't take a political stand; we just provide what we think is fair and right for our employees," said Ford Motor Co. spokeswoman Marcey Evans. "The company is committed to diversity, tolerance and inclusion."
The sentiment is the same at the University of Michigan, the first public university in Michigan to offer the benefits in 1994.
"We offer benefits to our employees in order to recruit and retain the very best faculty and staff. That's a decision we make as an employer," said Julie Peterson, a university spokeswoman. "The constitutional definition of marriage is not relevant to our decision."
Indeed, Dahlia Schwartz, a former attorney and stay-at-home mother of two, said she and her partner moved back to Michigan from Massachusetts three years ago in large part because of the domestic partner benefits offered to her partner, now an employee at Wayne State University.
"It was a prime negotiating point. She did not accept the job until we were 100 percent certain that not only I would be covered, but that our children would be, too," said Schwartz, who lives in Beverly Hills.
Diocese backs benefits
The Catholic Church, which kicked in more than half of the $1.7 million raised in support of Proposal 2, also supports health benefits for gay employees.
"The question we put before voters reaffirmed the traditional definition of marriage, it was not about benefits," said Ned McGrath, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Detroit. "The courts and other people that decided to take that up, that's their prerogative. If anything, we'd like to see the debate moved away from tying marriage and health care benefits together. We support universal health care."
The church sent videotapes of Cardinal Adam Maida, archbishop of the Detroit diocese, urging adoption of the amendment to all 802 parishes in Michigan. The Michigan Catholic Conference contributed $1 million of the total raised to back the amendment; about half of the donation came from the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Voters themselves seem confused about the debate over health care benefits. At least a dozen contacted by The Detroit News said they would not have supported the marriage amendment if they had known it would put domestic partner health care benefits at risk.
"I voted that way because I believe marriage is a sacrament," said Patricia Klein, 75, a retired former supervisor at Verizon Wireless who lives in Belleville. "But I definitely support them having a civil ceremony and having domestic partner benefits. I don't remember (the proposal) saying anything about health benefits."
John Boyar of Eastpointe said his "yes" vote simply reaffirmed his belief in one man-one woman marriage. "It was about marriage, that's all I know," said Boyar, a retired TV repairman.
But Jim Powell, a GM retiree who lives in Clayton Township in Arenac County, said he would have voted for the proposal even if he'd known it would affect benefits.
"Anything to do with gay marriage or gay couples, I'm negative," said Powell, 64.
'Like a second-class citizen'
The debate over benefits pains psychologist Judith Block of Ann Arbor. She and her partner are raising a 5-year-old daughter conceived through an anonymous sperm donor. They are among the couples who would receive domestic partner benefits from the state if the court clears the way.
"You feel like a second-class citizen," said Block, 45, who works for the state in Washtenaw County as a consulting forensic examiner. "You get to the point where you just feel like, OK, fine, you won't let me get married, but can you please allow health benefits for me so I can cover my family?"
Block plans to add her partner, a lawyer in private practice, to her health insurance if Michigan courts allow it. The couple now pays about $6,000 a year in premiums for her.
The Patrick family also waits for a definitive ruling on their health benefits. While all of their four children -- three of whom were adopted and one who is a foster child -- would be covered by either Dennis' or Tom's insurance if Tom Patrick moved to a full-time position, they fear the parenting time Tom enjoys would be cut severely.
"I don't believe voters intended to hurt families and kids. Our families exist, and no proposal or law is going to change the fact," said Dennis Patrick, a professor of family counseling at Eastern Michigan University. He and Tom legally changed their last name to Patrick, Dennis' middle name.
The Patricks have grudgingly joined the ACLU lawsuit.
The two cases before the Michigan Court of Appeals are:
• The nonprofit National Pride at Work organization and the ACLU have sued the state on behalf of 21 same-sex couples, arguing that health benefits are simply a perk of employment, not a right of marriage.
• The Thomas More Law Center has sued Ann Arbor Public Schools for offering domestic partner benefits to gay employees. The center, founded in 1999 by Thomas Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and former owner of the Detroit Tigers, is a nonprofit conservative Christian law center.
Activists on both sides agree the matter will likely be settled by the state Supreme Court. Even then, experts say the issue is cloudy enough that it may take a U.S. Supreme Court decision to finalize the issue.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/health/0511/21/A01-388663.htm
Tom and Dennis Patrick are raising four children in a quaint blue farmhouse on a rural road in Ypsilanti Township. Their oldest son, Josh, 9, suffers from seizures, but doctors don't know why. The domestic partner health benefits provided to Tom through Dennis' employer, Eastern Michigan University, allow Tom to work part time and be available to take Josh to his frequent doctor's appointments and the hospital.
But six words in a constitutional amendment Michigan voters embraced last November may disrupt the harmony of the Patrick household. The amendment, approved by 59 percent of voters, bans same-sex marriages by defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In two lawsuits before the Michigan Court of Appeals, some argue the law also bars employers from offering health insurance to the partners of same-sex couples and their children. Others say the law was only intended to prevent marriage between gays and between lesbians; they argue the decision to offer benefits is the prerogative of employers without interference from the state.
Health benefits for gay families hinge on lawsuits
Domestic partners worry state's definition of marriage will keep them from insurance coverage.
By Amy Lee / The Detroit News
YPSILANTI -- Hospital trips, medications and tests are a part of everyday life at the Patrick home.
Tom and Dennis Patrick are raising four children in a quaint blue farmhouse on a rural road in Ypsilanti Township. Their oldest son, Josh, 9, suffers from seizures, but doctors don't know why.
The domestic partner health benefits provided to Tom through Dennis' employer, Eastern Michigan University, allow Tom to work part time and be available to take Josh to his frequent doctor's appointments and the hospital.
But six words in a constitutional amendment Michigan voters embraced last November may disrupt the harmony of the Patrick household. The amendment, approved by 59 percent of voters, bans same-sex marriages by defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
In two lawsuits before the Michigan Court of Appeals, some argue the law also bars employers from offering health insurance to the partners of same-sex couples and their children. Others say the law was only intended to prevent marriage between gays and between lesbians; they argue the decision to offer benefits is the prerogative of employers without interference from the state.
Josh's seizures "are very scary for him and for us, too," said Tom Patrick, a part-time teacher in the Plymouth-Canton Public Schools district. "This way, one of us is with him every time he goes. ... I wouldn't be able to do that if I wasn't part time."
Fight could have big impact
In Michigan, same-sex couples head more than 15,200 households, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Some 70 public and private employers in the state -- including most major universities and colleges, several school districts and some cities -- offer health benefits to the partner and dependents of gay employees. A court decision would largely impact public employers because they are supported by taxpayer dollars. But gay rights activists fret any ruling against domestic partner benefits could have a chilling effect on private employers offering benefits in the future.
"It would be very safe to say that Michigan's current struggles would put them in the category of being a test case," said Brad Luna, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization based in Washington, D.C. "All across the country where marriage amendments are being passed, they're passed with ... a convoluted sense of what it means. States (are trying) to deal with whether (the amendments are) a narrow interpretation regarding marriage or an octopus with eight legs that reaches out and touches everything."
A decision in Michigan might impact how other state courts view similar benefits in their states. It is likely to be appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court.
At issue is the language approved by voters in Proposal 2: "To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose."
Opponents of domestic partner benefits argue that the phrase "or similar union for any purpose" bans such benefits.
"Of course the amendment is clear in that it prevents any type of benefits program from extending into a homosexual relationship," said Patrick Gillen, co-author of the marriage amendment and litigation counsel for the conservative Thomas Moore Law Center in Ann Arbor, which is suing to eliminate the benefits. "It's a labeling game, but a same-sex union under any other name is still a same-sex union and the constitutional amendment provides that same-sex unions will not be recognized for any purpose. Period."
But the American Civil Liberties Union argues differently.
"You can't say that providing health benefits is creating a marriage. It's up to employers, public and private, to decide if they want to offer those benefits to attract and retain quality employees," said Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan who is heading the fight to maintain the benefits. "Some people would like gay people to go back into the closet, but this is not what the voters wanted and this was not what they were told the amendment was about."
State employees in limbo
The debate in Michigan also has provoked a battle between two of the state's most powerful politicians -- Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Republican Attorney General Mike Cox. Granholm supports the benefits; Cox does not. Neither would comment on the issue, but a contract for state employees that includes the benefits is in limbo until the courts rule on the issue, which is expected to occur before the end of the year.
A recent EPIC/MRA poll shows 47 percent of Michigan voters believe public employers have the right to offer benefits to the partners of gay or lesbian employees, while 39 percent oppose them and 14 percent are undecided. The poll of 600 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Many public and private employers say they offer domestic partner benefits to attract and retain good employees.
"We don't take a political stand; we just provide what we think is fair and right for our employees," said Ford Motor Co. spokeswoman Marcey Evans. "The company is committed to diversity, tolerance and inclusion."
The sentiment is the same at the University of Michigan, the first public university in Michigan to offer the benefits in 1994.
"We offer benefits to our employees in order to recruit and retain the very best faculty and staff. That's a decision we make as an employer," said Julie Peterson, a university spokeswoman. "The constitutional definition of marriage is not relevant to our decision."
Indeed, Dahlia Schwartz, a former attorney and stay-at-home mother of two, said she and her partner moved back to Michigan from Massachusetts three years ago in large part because of the domestic partner benefits offered to her partner, now an employee at Wayne State University.
"It was a prime negotiating point. She did not accept the job until we were 100 percent certain that not only I would be covered, but that our children would be, too," said Schwartz, who lives in Beverly Hills.
Diocese backs benefits
The Catholic Church, which kicked in more than half of the $1.7 million raised in support of Proposal 2, also supports health benefits for gay employees.
"The question we put before voters reaffirmed the traditional definition of marriage, it was not about benefits," said Ned McGrath, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Detroit. "The courts and other people that decided to take that up, that's their prerogative. If anything, we'd like to see the debate moved away from tying marriage and health care benefits together. We support universal health care."
The church sent videotapes of Cardinal Adam Maida, archbishop of the Detroit diocese, urging adoption of the amendment to all 802 parishes in Michigan. The Michigan Catholic Conference contributed $1 million of the total raised to back the amendment; about half of the donation came from the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Voters themselves seem confused about the debate over health care benefits. At least a dozen contacted by The Detroit News said they would not have supported the marriage amendment if they had known it would put domestic partner health care benefits at risk.
"I voted that way because I believe marriage is a sacrament," said Patricia Klein, 75, a retired former supervisor at Verizon Wireless who lives in Belleville. "But I definitely support them having a civil ceremony and having domestic partner benefits. I don't remember (the proposal) saying anything about health benefits."
John Boyar of Eastpointe said his "yes" vote simply reaffirmed his belief in one man-one woman marriage. "It was about marriage, that's all I know," said Boyar, a retired TV repairman.
But Jim Powell, a GM retiree who lives in Clayton Township in Arenac County, said he would have voted for the proposal even if he'd known it would affect benefits.
"Anything to do with gay marriage or gay couples, I'm negative," said Powell, 64.
'Like a second-class citizen'
The debate over benefits pains psychologist Judith Block of Ann Arbor. She and her partner are raising a 5-year-old daughter conceived through an anonymous sperm donor. They are among the couples who would receive domestic partner benefits from the state if the court clears the way.
"You feel like a second-class citizen," said Block, 45, who works for the state in Washtenaw County as a consulting forensic examiner. "You get to the point where you just feel like, OK, fine, you won't let me get married, but can you please allow health benefits for me so I can cover my family?"
Block plans to add her partner, a lawyer in private practice, to her health insurance if Michigan courts allow it. The couple now pays about $6,000 a year in premiums for her.
The Patrick family also waits for a definitive ruling on their health benefits. While all of their four children -- three of whom were adopted and one who is a foster child -- would be covered by either Dennis' or Tom's insurance if Tom Patrick moved to a full-time position, they fear the parenting time Tom enjoys would be cut severely.
"I don't believe voters intended to hurt families and kids. Our families exist, and no proposal or law is going to change the fact," said Dennis Patrick, a professor of family counseling at Eastern Michigan University. He and Tom legally changed their last name to Patrick, Dennis' middle name.
The Patricks have grudgingly joined the ACLU lawsuit.
The two cases before the Michigan Court of Appeals are:
• The nonprofit National Pride at Work organization and the ACLU have sued the state on behalf of 21 same-sex couples, arguing that health benefits are simply a perk of employment, not a right of marriage.
• The Thomas More Law Center has sued Ann Arbor Public Schools for offering domestic partner benefits to gay employees. The center, founded in 1999 by Thomas Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and former owner of the Detroit Tigers, is a nonprofit conservative Christian law center.
Activists on both sides agree the matter will likely be settled by the state Supreme Court. Even then, experts say the issue is cloudy enough that it may take a U.S. Supreme Court decision to finalize the issue.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/health/0511/21/A01-388663.htm
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