Partnership Benefits and Michigan’s Public Employees, Part 1

The Michigan Supreme Court is preparing to hear oral arguments in November on whether Proposal 2, passed in 2004, prohibits government institutions, including cities and universities, from offering benefits to the domestic partners of their employees. And both sides are returning to the debate that lead up to its passage. In July 2004, there was no hotter political issue in the nation than same-sex marriage. There were referenda on the ballot in eleven states to ban same-sex marriage that fall, including Michigan’s Proposal 2.

Many of these proposals were vaguely written, leading to much debate over exactly what they would and would not do if adopted. In particular, the question of whether the ban on same-sex marriage would also make it illegal for employers, particular public employers, to offer insurance protection and other benefits to the partners of gay or unmarried employees was being debated far and wide.

This was especially true in Michigan, where the ballot language said that only a union between a man and a woman could be recognized as a marriage “or similar union for any purpose.” It was that last phrase that was troublesome. Opponents of Proposal 2 pointed out time and time again that the broad language could be used to outlaw partnership benefit contracts, but those who wrote and advocated the proposal, Citizens for the Protection of Marriage (CFPM), repeatedly denied in the press that it would do so. Less than two weeks before the election, the Grand Rapids Press raised the issue with Gary Glenn, director of the American Family Association of Michigan:

Opponents are trying to stress economic and social-justice worries because of the uncertainties they say Proposal 2 creates. The final words of the proposal
— “or similar union for any purpose” — threaten domestic-partner benefits for same-sex couples and potential civil unions for gays and straights, they say.

“The short of it is nobody really knows what this amendment would do,” said Dana Houle, of the Coalition for a Fair Michigan.

Glenn calls that kind of talk a “scare tactic” and insists public and private employers could continue to offer domestic-partnership benefits if they want to. (Grand Rapids Press, October 24, 2004)

Continued -Glenn was not alone. Kristina Hemphill, communications director for CFPM, told the Holland Sentinel on October 30, 2004, “This amendment has nothing to do with benefits” and that for opponents of the proposal to tell people that it it could be used to void such contract language was “just a diversion from the real issue.