Urge public employers to keep their DP benefits intact!
On February 2nd, 2007 the Michigan Court of Appeals released the most anti-GLBT ruling in Michigan's history. The Court held that the 2004 Michigan Constitutional amendment banning marriage equality also prohibits public employers in Michigan (such as cities, school districts, community college and universities) from being able to offer domestic partnership benefits. These benefits are often used to provide important resources such as health care to public employee's partners and their partner's children.
This is your opportunity to contact the leadership of public employers who have not yet announced what they are going to do regarding DP Benefits. There are options available to them and we'd like to help them utilize these options so that their employees will continue to have access to these important benefits.
Tell me more
Talking Points
- The Michigan Court of Appeals has adopted a broad reading of the constitutional amendment passed in 2004 (Proposal 2) prohibiting same-sex marriages - saying that same-sex couples can never be recognized for anything by a state or local government. That is not what voters were told in 2004 by proponents of this amendment. The majority of voters did not intend to take health insurance away from families and children.
-
The Court deliberately ignored case decisions in other states that looked at laws the prohibited same-sex marriage and still held that public employers can offer domestic partner benefits. The Michigan Court of Appeals decision is totally out of sync with the consensus of every other state court that has looked in this issue.
-
The Court of Appeals on its own initiative, without any request from the parties (including Attorney General Mike Cox) ordered that their decision is to take immediate effect - which could have the effect of stopping people’s health insurance and their access to health care. This can only be viewed as callous and mean-spirited and lacking any legal basis.
-
The Court of Appeals- mistakenly found that anytime criteria for benefits has anything in common with criteria for marriage - it’s in violation of the amendment’s language. Consider this, just because you need to be 16 to get a driver’s license and have to be 16 to legally wed, doesn’t mean the driver’s license is a marriage or similar to marriage. DP benefits don’t create any legal entity like marriage. They don’t create any legal rights or responsibilities. DP benefits are taxed as income (spousal insurance benefits are not). There are numerous differences between the two.
-
The panel makes no mention of the plaintiffs, their situation, the impact of DP benefits on their lives.
-
However, the Court of Appeals, as bad as their decision is, did not say that public employers couldn’t provide health insurance to domestic partners - they just said that you can’t use recognition of the relationship as a criteria for coverage. In other words there are ways for public employers to provide coverage.
Dear [ Decision Maker ],
As you are probably aware, the Michigan Appeals Court ruled in February that a new constitutional definition of marriage, prohibits public employers from offering domestic partner benefits, but still allows them to offer benefits to unmarried employees through different criteria.
Many public employers across the state, and certainly people receiving domestic partner benefits are very concerned about this potential roadblock to adequate health insurance for thousands of employees across the state. Although this court decision is horrible, it is on appeal and may be overturned by the Michigan Supreme Court. In the meantime all public employers can continue offering benefits if they do so with different criteria.
(Edit Letter Below)
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]
|
Take Action on this Issue
Send this message to:
Complete the following to send this message.
If you have participated before, just type in your email address then submit the form.
* Required Field
|
