By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman
MOUNT PLEASANT – An April 27, 2005 report by Central Michigan University Life stated that 217 employees at nine state universities are utilizing the domestic partner benefits offered by those universities.
That means that 217 families stand to lose vital health insurance and other benefits if efforts to stop the benefits are successful. Anti-family activists and the Thomas More Law Center claim that the passage of the anti-marriage Proposal 2 in November means that state and municipal governments, school boards and state universities are no longer allowed to offer benefits to families headed by same-sex or opposite-sex unmarried partners claiming that offering such benefits equates those families with those headed by dual-gendered, married couples. This position has been backed by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican.
The CMU Life survey found that the University of Michigan's three campuses employ a total of 187 employees that are using the domestic partner benefits. UofM is on record as saying that the university will fight any effort to rescind the benefits in court.
CMU, Northern Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Saginaw Valley State Universities collectively employ thirty people whose families are using the benefits, according to the report. Wayne State University, which also offers the benefits, did not return the paper's phone calls.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit seeking to limit Proposal 2's effects to marriage alone, in line with the claims of Proposal 2's backers who stated throughout the November 2004 campaign that the proposal was merely designed to define marriage as between one man and one woman and was not about taking away benefits.
Of course, even if pro-family activists prevail in their defense of domestic partner benefits, unmarried employees who sign up to provide those benefits to their partners will have to pay federal income taxes on them.
According to a May 5 Washington Post report, "Under federal law, any portion of an employer-paid insurance premium that goes for coverage for a domestic partner is treated as taxable income to the employee."
According to the Post, Congress is to blame for the tax on DP benefits, not the IRS.
The federal Defense of Marriage Act further codifies the inability for an employee to receive tax-free health insurance for his or her employer, the Post reported.
