IV. Formulating a benefit proposal.

• Pages: #2005

In preparation for seeking employment benefits, one must address and resolve many specific issues:

1. Types of Benefits Involved

   Employment benefits can be roughly divided into two categories--economic benefits and non-economic benefits. The type of benefit sought may affect the strategy employed, the eligibility criteria advocated and the chance of successfully obtaining coverage for lesbian and gay partners. (59)

   Economic benefits represent a potential significant cost to the employer and significant compensation to the employee. While there is some cost involved with non-economic benefits, the cost is considerably less for the employer than health insurance or death benefits.

   If essentially non-economic benefits are sought, one may appeal to an employer's sense of fairness without triggering opposition based on fear of unknown costs. Extending non-economic benefits could be an easy way for the employer to take a first step toward achieving equity among employees without incurring exorbitant costs.

2. Types of Relationships Included

   Inevitably, when an effort is made to extend benefits to lesbian and gay domestic partners, the response of some people will be, "But what about my elderly mother?" or "I've lived with my sister for 26 years. Why can't I cover her?"

   In 1979, when an employee requested that the University of California provide health insurance to his family partner, the University denied coverage. The university justified the denial of coverage by claiming that if it provided coverage to domestic partners of lesbian and gay employees, it would "open the floodgates" and require provision of coverage to unmarried heterosexual couples, mothers or fathers of employees, and persons responsible for any other relative or even a close friend, at an alleged increased cost of 6.4 million dollars annually.

   The question of extension of benefits to persons other than spouses has existed for a long time. This question, however, will remain regardless of whether or not lesbian and gay employees are provided benefits for their family partners. It is simply not a lesbian and gay issue. Efforts to extend benefits to lesbian and gay partners may remind people that they cannot provide coverage to everyone they would like, but they do not create the problem.

   Nor, perhaps, would it be appropriate for an employer to be responsible for providing insurance coverage to everyone with whom its employees have some relationship. There is no doubt that in an ideal world, everyone who needed health benefits would have them. It is important to always keep in mind when addressing this issue that the provision of benefits to those in non-partner relationships is a separate issue from the provision of benefits to lesbian and gay family partners. Our concern is one of equal treatment.

   If the goal is to provide equal compensation to lesbian and gay employees, the question of extension of benefits to other relationships need not arise. Heterosexual employees cannot cover their mother, their brother, or their friend. They usually can cover their spouses. Equal pay principles require only that lesbian and gay employees be provided with benefits for their partners with whom they are in a "spousal" relationship.

   If the approach taken focuses on the purpose of the benefit involved, one will have more difficulty refuting the "why not my elderly mother" argument. Quite frankly, for many types of benefits, it makes the most sense to allow an employee to receive benefits based on his or her most significant relationships, or financial support obligations, no matter what the nature of the relationship.

   1. Unmarried Opposite-sex Couples

   One question that inevitably will arise is whether unmarried opposite-sex couples should qualify for family partner benefits. There are forceful arguments on both sides of this question. The majority of individuals and groups involved in the attempt to extend benefits, however, have concluded that coverage should extend to both same-sex and unmarried opposite-sex couples.

   On the one hand, the need for extended-benefits coverage is usually more significant for lesbian and gay couples than it is for heterosexual couples. Quite simply, unmarried opposite-sex couples are usually not married by choice. Unmarried opposite-sex couples with a serious commitment to each other have considered and rejected the various rights and responsibilities which marriage entails, including access to a multitude of marriage-related benefits. Same-sex couples do not have this option.

   Unlike lesbian and gay couples, opposite-sex couples are not absolutely precluded from qualifying for family employment benefits by use of the marriage criterion. At a time of crisis, when the need for benefits is greatest, opposite-sex couples can choose to marry and qualify for benefit coverage.

   On the other hand, unmarried opposite-sex couples should be our political allies. It seems judgmental to refuse to include those heterosexual couples who have rejected the traditional marital relationship. Heterosexual employees who are in stable and committed relationships should qualify for benefits for their partners for the same reasons that lesbian and gay employees should. Including their relationships is more in line with a political analysis of supporting family diversity, as opposed to the nuclear family basis for benefit qualification. Including unmarried heterosexual couples in benefit schemes averts charges of discrimination, and often makes a proposal more palatable to unions, fellow employees, and the public.

   The effort to achieve employment benefit coverage was instigated by the lesbian and gay community. Lesbians and gay men have sustained the effort. Although unmarried opposite-sex couples are not part of the problem that gave rise to this effort, their support and inclusion may be necessary to the solution.

   Employers, however, may object that including opposite-sex couples will be too expensive. If threshold eligibility criteria are kept strict and opposite-sex couples not in serious...