By Joshua Jones
On Thursday evening this week, supporters of a proposed Domestic Partnership Registry are encouraged to wear red and attend the City Council meeting, when the proposed ordinance will receive a first reading.
This is an important ordinance that not only helps a variety of family types gain nearly equal footing with traditional married couples, but it’s also an opportunity for Pensacola to show the business world that the City’s arms are open to receive the diversity that corporate America has already embraced.
If Pensacola adopts the proposed ordinance, we will be the last major metropolitan area in the State to do so. Currently, 47% of Florida residents live in a city or county that has already added a domestic partnership registry. If Pensacola intends to grow, attract business, and compete with its sister cities, it must get on board the equality train.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, 88% of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, and 62% allow employees to include their domestic partners on employee benefit plans. Even conservative companies like Wal Mart have added domestic partner benefits.
You may be wondering, “why a domestic partnership registry now, when universal marriage equality is on the horizon?†Despite the fact that there were two U.S. Supreme Court rulings this Summer supporting same-sex marriage, three additional states have enacted legislation adding marriage equality, and as of last count, 23 additional court cases are pending, it could take another ten years before marriage equality reaches every state in the union. Aligned with the other conservative Southern states, you can be sure Florida will be among the last hold-outs.
Waiting silently keeps Pensacola on the wrong side of history, when it could be taking proactive steps to secure equality.
Furthermore, domestic partnership registries benefit a broader community than the LGBT populace. The proposed domestic partnership registry for Pensacola would allow any co-habitating adults to register as domestic partners – including opposite-sex couples. It is common that elderly opposite-sex couples live together in meaningful, committed relationships, but for various reasons, particularly the potential loss of much needed public benefits, cannot get married.
A domestic partnership registry would include those heterosexual couples, and based on the most recent census data, the domestic partnership registry would probably have a greater impact on that demographic than it would on the LGBT community. Even after marriage equality becomes the norm, there will still be co-habitating couples that will benefit from a domestic partnership registry.
So what exactly would a domestic partnership registry do? For a small registration fee, domestic partnership registration would bestow certain legal benefits that automatically attach in a traditional marriage. For example, the right to visit each other in the hospital and to make medical decisions for one another if one is incapacitated, the right to make funeral and burial decisions, participation in the education of the other’s children, and legal proof to secure domestic partnership benefits from an employer.
Though it is possible to achieve these protections with some legal documents and estate planning, such legal services are often out of the financial reach of those who need them most. Even the most simple estate plan is substantially more expensive than would be a domestic partnership registration.
The past 10-years has seen Pensacola recover from a devastating hurricane to revitalize a dilapidated downtown, in ways that prove she is ready and able to compete with any big city on the Gulf Coast. A domestic partnership registry further makes the point.
Pensacola is ready.