|
The Salt Lake
Tribune
Becker's list:
Domestic partnership
would not be marriage
EDITORIAL, sltrib.com
from the Web, January 12, 2008
Mayor Ralph Becker wants Salt Lake
City to make a little list. It would be a registry of couples who have
declared that they are unmarried, monogamous domestic partners. After
paying a fee, they would receive a certificate.
The certificate would make it easier for domestic partners, whether same-sex or
not, to receive health-care benefits from employers. It also would enable
these folks to have visiting privileges in a hospital.
It's the humane thing to do. It's the right thing to do.
But in Utah, it may not be a legal thing to do.
Mayor Becker, who is proposing a new law to the City Council to set up the
Domestic Partnership Registry, claims that it doesn't run afoul of Amendment 3,
the provision of the Utah Constitution that prohibits same-sex marriage.
The voters approved Amendment 3 overwhelmingly in 2004, despite warnings from
opponents, including this newspaper, who worried that it would preclude exactly
the sort of system that Becker is seeking.
Amendment 3 states that: (1) marriage consists only of the legal union between a
man and a woman; and (2) no other domestic union, no matter what it is called,
may be recognized as a marriage or given substantially equivalent legal effect.
We do not favor same-sex marriage. But neither do we favor denying
employee benefits to committed domestic couples who are not married.
Lawyers can argue all day over whether Becker's proposal creates a domestic
union which is "substantially equivalent" to marriage. We don't think it
does, but the courts may have to decide.
The registry would create a reliable way for the city and for businesses
licensed within it to determine whether an employee's domestic partner and
beneficiaries are eligible for employee benefits. It's a logical extension
of a law the city passed in 2006 extending employee benefits to one adult
designee of an unmarried employee and the child or children of the designee.
To be registered, two people would have to declare that they are each other's
sole domestic partner, are in a mutually caring, committed and supportive
relationship, are at least 18 years old, are competent to make a contract, and
share common financial obligations and a primary residence.
Death or marriage would end a partnership. Both parties would agree to
file a termination of the partnership if their relationship changed.
It's a little like marriage, but not nearly the whole enchilada.
|
