Word: partnership
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Still, the most ardent support for partnership rights comes from gay groups. For them the issue is more pressing: heterosexual couples at least have the option to wed if they wish to be eligible for family benefits, but gays do not. (Denmark in October became the only industrial nation to allow registered gay partnerships.) In addition, the spread of AIDS has raised the importance for gays of medical coverage, bereavement-leave policies, pension rules, hospital visitation rights and laws giving family members the authority to make medical decisions and funeral arrangements. "We are not talking about symbols here," says Thomas...
...have a "close and committed personal relationship involving shared responsibilities." Thomas F. Coleman, a law professor who directs California's Family Diversity Project, proposes that live-in couples "who have assumed mutual obligation of commitment and support for each other" be allowed to apply for a "certificate of domestic partnership" that would function like a marriage certificate...
...Washington a domestic-partnership benefits commission has been established by the city council to explore extending benefits to the partners of municipal employees...
...large problem facing the domestic-partnership movement is a practical one: major U.S. insurance companies have thus far refused to offer group plans that include coverage for unmarried partners, partly because of the unspoken fear that the pool would include a higher proportion of gay males at risk for AIDS. In West Hollywood when the city decided to provide health coverage to its employees' domestic partners, no insurance company would underwrite the business. The city had to resort to self-insurance. So far that has resulted in a drop in costs, but it has not yet encouraged leading insurance companies...
...domestic-partnership movement, says David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values, a Manhattan-based group that studies family issues, "just misses the whole point of why we confer privileges on family relationships." As Archbishop Quinn argues, "The permanent commitment of husband and wife in marriage is intrinsically tied to the procreation and raising of children." Despite the emergence of women in the workplace and changes in the traditional structure of family dependency, it is still necessary for most families to share rights and benefits in order to raise children and remain financially secure...