From: sbgreene@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Steven Greene)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Stanford press release on domestic partners (Part 1)
Date: 5 Nov 92 16:07:30 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

[Sorry if you've seen blank posts from me.  The news poster refused to
 post the text twice.  I've tried splitting it up to see if that helps.]

11/4/92 CONTACT:  Karen Bartholomew, News Service  (415) 725- 1949

        Faculty endorses benefits parity for domestic partners

        STANFORD -- The Faculty Senate has endorsed the concept of
benefits parity for same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners of faculty and
staff.
        In a divided voice vote with approximately a half dozen "nays," the
senate on Thursday, Oct. 29, told President Gerhard Casper that it would like
domestic partners to have the same benefits now available to faculty and staff
spouses, including health insurance, the tuition grant program for children,
athletic and library privileges, the right to audit university courses and the
partner's right to remain in on-campus housing after an employee's death.
        The senate vote is advisory only. The issue ultimately will be
decided by Casper and the Board of Trustees. Approximately 30 to 35 of the 55-
member senate was present when the vote was taken several minutes past the
usual 5:30 p.m. adjournment time.
        Casper, who is out of town, is unavailable for comment. He is
expected to take up the issue with trustees at their next meeting Dec. 7-8.
        After the vote, one of the measure's primary advocates predicted
that Casper and the trustees will feel "compelled by the voice of the senate" to
approve the measure.
        Katherine O'Hanlan, assistant professor in the School of Medicine
and associate director of the gynecologic cancer service, said the senate had
taken "the moral high ground" on the issue.
        "I'm pleased that such a resonant majority was in support," she
said. "I feel wonderfully supported."
        Several senators spoke against the measure, saying the university
should not be in the position of certifying unmarried relationships and the
senate should not be used by pressure groups.
        Some were less than enthusiastic about extending parity to
opposite-sex couples, who have the option of marriage. A motion to  vote
separately for opposite-sex and same-sex parity was turned down.
        But overall, the senate's mood seemed to be summed up by
Professor David Botstein, genetics, when he said that "most of us want to have a
statement that discrimination for people who cannot get married should be
remedied."
        Near the end of the discussion, senators turned collective editor,
striking from the resolution the words "gay" and "lesbian" as unnecessary and
possibly judgmental parenthetical descriptors of "same-sex."
        They also struck "intimate" as an unnecessary modifier to
"longterm relationship."
        The definition of domestic partner now reads, in part: ". . . two
individuals who live together in a longterm relationship of indefinite duration,
with an exclusive mutual commitment similar to that of marriage, in which the
partners agree to be financially responsible for each others' well-being, and
each others' debts to third parties." The definition also specifies that the 
partners are not blood relatives.
        The measure recommended that employees enrolling their
domestic partners be required to sign a declaration stating that those 
conditions had been met.

        Symbolism for same-sex couples

        Introducing the senate resolution on behalf of its backers, law
Professor William Simon expressed disappointment that the inclusion of
opposite-sex unmarried couples would dilute the symbolism of benefits parity
as an expression of civil rights for gays and lesbians. Hardly anyone, he said,
believes that the issue for unmarried heterosexual couples is as compelling as
that for same-sex couples.
        Simon said he nevertheless supported the combined resolution
and hoped the administration would act "expeditiously" to adopt it.
        Invited to address the senate before its debate, O'Hanlan said the
senate resolution was not intended as a political statement. Rather, she said,
it grants gay and lesbian faculty and staff members who are in marriage-like
relationships access to the same benefits. "The issue is access," she said.
        "We are your colleagues, and we deserve equal treatment," she
said.
        She said that approximately 60 percent of gays and lesbians are
in marriage-like relationships and a survey indicated that 90 percent of those
couples report commingling their financial resources.
        Lack of access to benefits, she said, penalizes gays and lesbians
because they contribute to the Stanford benefits pool, but cannot take
advantage of its features. After the meeting, O'Hanlan said she has paid $2,000
annually in post-tax dollars to purchase insurance for her partner. Such
individual policies are "more arbitrarily administered, are much more costly and
usually less broad," she told the senate.
        She cited numerous businesses and municipalities that now
provide benefits for domestic partners - including Lotus Computer Co., Apple
Computer, Silicon Graphics, Levi Strauss and the cities of Cambridge, Mass.,
and East Lansing, Mich. She said that several universities "are poised to do
so."
        O'Hanlan developed the proposed legislation in early 1991,
working with then-senator Deborah Rhode, professor of law, who sponsored
the measure.
        The senate took up the issue that spring, asking the University
Committee on Faculty and Staff Benefits for a report more thorough than one
brought at that time to the faculty legislative body.
        After a yearlong study, a subcommittee on Domestic Partners'
Benefits in June 1992 issued a 61-page, single-spaced report unanimously
proposing benefits extension to domestic partners of same-sex couples and
adding an endorsement for opposite-sex couples, which had not been included
in the original proposal.
        Subcommittee chair Barbara Fried, law, explained to the senate
that her group studied the opposite-sex partner issue because members
assumed it would be raised eventually. Subcommittee members felt the case for
opposite-sex parity was weaker because those couples have the option of
marriage.
        As for costs, Fried said there was a "paucity of good empirical
data" to make detailed estimates. There is some concern, she said, that the cost
of covering domestic partners would be significantly higher because of HIV-
related disease risk in the gay male population.
        However, all existing studies show no higher cost for domestic
partners than for conventional families, she said. Reasons for this are not 
clear, but it appears that health costs for lesbians may be below average and 
that expenses for HIV-related illnesses may also be lower than expected, she 
said.
        Most domestic partners are employed, Fried said, and probably
would find it cheaper to enroll in their own employer-subsidized insurance than
be carried as a dependent on one of the Stanford plans. Statistics from the 
cities of San Francisco and Berkeley support this idea, she said.