Wisc. County Mulls Benefits for Families of Gay Public Workers

Milwaukee County, in the state of Wisconsin, is poised to extend benefits to the families of gay and lesbian public employees, local radio station WTMJ-AM reported on July 7.

At present, the families of married full-time county workers may receive health coverage. But Wisconsin voters passed an anti-gay amendment the state constitution in 2006 that targeted gay and lesbian families for exclusion from marriage rights, leaving gay public employees and their families unable to access benefits that accrue to their heterosexual peers.

The state created a domestic partnership registry in 2009, and though anti-gay activists attempted to have the registry declared in violation of the amended state constitution (despite assurances in 2006 that the amendment would still allow for domestic partnerships), a recent court ruling upheld the registry.

Milwaukee County is now considering allowing workers with registered domestic partners to access equitable health benefits, the WTMJ article reported.

Nine county supervisors were slated to appear at a local hospital to reveal details for the proposal, the article said. This is not the first time such a plan has been put forward; the County Board approved a similar proposal two years ago, only for the plan to be vetoed by Scott Walker, who was, at the time, the Country Executive.

Walker subsequently became governor of the Wisconsin and promptly stripped collective bargaining rights from state employees in a hotly contested move that ended when the state supreme court found in favor of Walker.

Walker's successor at the post of County Executive, Chris Abele, is unlikely to oppose the plan if it passes the board, having stated last month that he would back the proposal.

"This is about doing the right things," Abele told the media.

But the cost is likely to draw criticism. Though no one has suggested ending such benefits for heterosexuals, the additional $700,000 that the same-sex families' benefits plan would likely add to county spending might strike some as too high a price for a measure of equality.

Gay and lesbian families won a major victory recently when New York became the eighth state to approve marriage parity. But the back-and forth, sometime tenuous, nature of gay equality advances has been illustrated by the subsequent loss of those rights in two states, California and Maine, leaving only six states that currently honor and protect same-sex families in an equitable manner.

Thirty-one states currently have constitutional amendments barring marriage equality for same-sex couples. Voters in at least one other state, Minnesota, will weigh in on the marriage rights of their gay and lesbian fellow citizens next year. Anti-gay group the National Organization for Marriage is trying to get a similar initiative on the ballot in New Hampshire, where marriage equality is currently legal.

Even in those states where gay and lesbian couples enjoy the freedom to marry, no federal benefits accrue to married same-sex couples thanks to an anti-gay 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The state of Tennessee recently passed legislation that strips local governments of the right to implement GLBT-inclusive anti-discrimination ordinances. The state law is similar to an amendment Colorado voters approved to that state's constitution in 1992 -- an amendment that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 1996.