Domestic Partnership: A First Step Toward Marriage Equality

author : Janet Blanding topic : gay marriage

by Janet Blanding

Domestic partnership looks almost certain to become a reality for same-sex couples in Washington state in the near future. House Bill 1351 and Senate Bill 5336 are both out of committee and have so many co-sponsors that only a few more votes will be needed for the bills to pass. When passed and implemented, a state domestic partnership registry will be created, which will provide registered couples with enhanced rights. Both same-sex couples, and couples where at least one partner is over 62, will be eligible to register as domestic partnerships. While a state registered domestic partnership does not offer anywhere near the same benefits as a civil union or marriage, it's a step in the right direction.

The rights granted by registered domestic partnership mostly pertain to medical and end-of-life situations, including: health care facility visitation rights, the ability to grant informed consent for a patient who is not competent, the right to have health care information disclosed to a partner on the patient's behalf, certain title and rights to cemetery plots and rights of internment, ability to authorize autopsies, the right to control disposition of the remains of a deceased person, ability to make anatomical gifts for a deceased partner, certain inheritance rights, and administration of estate if the partner dies without a will. Domestic partnership registration also enables the domestic partner of public employee the right to receive benefits coverage in some circumstances.

At the committee hearing for Senate Bill 5336, the prime sponsor Senator Ed Murray testified with his partner, Michael Shiosaki by his side. "Michael and I wished that after 15 years together that we were here this afternoon to ask you to allow us to marry," he said, "but until that discussion of marriage occurs in the not too distant future, we, like thousands of lesbian and gay families across the state, need protection now."

Testifier Charlene Strong provided moving testimony about the consequences of not having that protection. During the recent storms of December, 2006, Strong's wife, Katherine Fleming, drowned when the basement of their Seattle home flooded. After nearly losing her own life in an attempt to save her partner of ten years, Strong followed the ambulance carrying Fleming to Harborview Medical Center. Once there Strong recounted that since she was not a legally recognized spouse, "I was denied access to Katherine, to be by her side as she lay dying. As the minutes ticked by, I kept wondering, what if she dies without me holding her hand? What if she dies without me telling her I loved her?" Only after a family member could be located in Alexandria, Virginia, to give consent allowing Strong into the hospital room, was Strong able to sit by her partner's hospital bed. "I was able to tell Kate how beautiful she was, and how dearly I loved her, as she lay dying," Strong said.

Later, Strong encountered obstacles when she attempted to fulfill Fleming's wishes regarding organ donation, and at the funeral home where she went to make burial arrangements. "When I got there, the funeral director did not even shake my hand. He did not offer me any condolences. He looked directly at Mrs. Fleming, Kate's mother, and directed all of his questions to her. When I asked him to direct his questions to me, as I would be making all the funeral arrangements, he would not even look at me. He slid the cremation request over to Mrs. Fleming. At that point I left the room, and someone else took over making the arrangements."

While the domestic partnership registry will prevent such situations as the ones Strong encountered, there is much it will not do for same-sex couples. Marriage automatically confers over 1000 federal rights and 300 state rights, the majority of which will not be granted by domestic partnership. These rights include tax breaks, survivor and pension benefits, the right to bring a wrongful death suit, spousal privilege that makes it a duty not to testify against the spouse in legal matters, and many others. In addition, marriage has an emotional meaning that goes beyond rights conferred, which should not be denied to committed life partners simply because they are of the same sex.

Local gay activist Jeff Kingsbury says of the domestic partnership legislation that "it's certainly better than nothing." However, it's less than he's looking for. "I want marriage for every citizen who wants it, with whomever they love. Fundamentally and civilly it is inappropriate for the state to decide who that can be." Kingsbury and his partner were among the 19 couples who were litigants in a lawsuit against the state of Washington, challenging the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act. This summer, the Washington state Supreme Court split 5-4, narrowly upholding the state law banning same-sex marriage.

Other equal rights advocates share Kingsbury's feelings about domestic partnership. Equal Rights Washington states its position that "while domestic partnerships neither meet the basic legal needs of same-sex couples nor provide the dignity and intangible protections that marriage affords, they do provide some level of protection presently unavailable to same-sex couples and their children," and encourages the immediate creation of the domestic partnership registry.

True equality for same-sex couples will take more than the ability to register as domestic partnerships; many gay rights advocates feel that given the current make-up of the legislature, the time is right to ask for more. "I am certainly grateful that we have a legislature today that has the will to provide at least these protections to those who are in committed relationships," said Kingsbury. "However, I remain concerned that by not pushing at a time that we have the political will to do it, that we are going to close the door."

Opponents of gay rights, however, are afraid of that door being opened. A number of people testified in opposition to the House and Senate bills. Several suddenly developed an interest in preventing discrimination -- against people other than same-sex couples. For instance, Bishop Joseph Tyson of the Washington State Catholic Conference testified that the Senate bill "unjustly discriminates against a wide swath of peoples in our state. This bill grants to domestic partners a package set of rights it fails to grant to the many other kinds of relationships that exist beyond the state's legal definition of marriage... A great variety of bonded relationships and various households exist outside of civil marriage, especially in our immigrant communities." Kingsbury characterized these remarks as "a disingenuous tool to try to undermine the intent of the bill."

At the hearing for House Bill 1351, Father Thomas Nathe presented Bishop Tyson's testimony. Representative Jamie Pedersen of Seattle, who is openly gay, followed up by remarking that he was delighted to see the groundswell of support for people not protected by legal marriage, and asked Father Nathe in what other ways the Catholic Conference was advocating for families outside the protection of marriage. Father Nathe had no answer.

Other opponents were more direct in their opposition to equal rights for gay and lesbian couples. Bob Higley, senior lobbyist for Positive Christian Agenda, testified at both the House and Senate hearings. Openly hostile to gay rights, even the relatively minor ones conferred by domestic partnership, he testified "the agenda of the homosexual agenda has advanced so homosexuality is taught as normal in our schools.... If you pass this bill, what is the next item to be considered to advance their agenda?" The official position of Positive Christian Agenda on domestic partnership legislation, as published on their website (http://www.positivechristianagenda.org/ ) states that "we see this as a critical bill for the eventual imposition of gay marriage upon an unwilling public."

Representative Brendan Williams (District 22), who is a co-sponsor of House Bill 1351, made the connection between Bob Higley, who has advocated strongly against domestic partnership, as well as other measures to ensure equal rights for glbtq (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer) people, and the Stormans family, who own Ralph's Thriftway and Bayview Thriftway supermarkets. (See sidebar.)

Indeed, it appears possible that opponents of domestic partnership may be using the resources of the Stormans family in their efforts to defeat domestic partnership. Daniel's House of Prayer, which does not have a city permit to run a house of worship or a home occupation, is apparently being used as a staging ground for people who testify in opposition of the domestic partnership legislation. Two women who signed in as opponents at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing were observed walking directly from the hearing to Daniel's House of Prayer. After the House Committee hearing, Bob Higley was overheard inviting a group of people who testified in opposition to the legislation to come up to "the prayer house." Ken Stormans, who is President of Stormans, Inc., is Chairman of the Board of Daniel's House of Prayer. It is not clear how the "prayer house," a large, expensively decorated house with well-maintained grounds in an area where real estate values are high, is funded.

Despite opposition from the organized, well-financed opponents of gay rights, it is almost certain that the domestic partnership bill will pass and its limited collection of rights will soon become available to same-sex couples. Jeff Kingsbury points out that passage of "the equal rights bill did not create the catastrophe in the workforce that they suggested over and over in testimony that they said it would." He and other advocates of gay rights hope that once conservative lawmakers see that granting rights to same-sex couples causes no disasters, that heterosexual marriages do not crumble, and the sky doesn't fall, it will pave the way to greater equality, chiefly in the form of the right to form civil unions and marriages.