[Durham INC] Durham County Attorney: Marriage Amendment is NOT a bar to same sex benefits.

[chloe palenchar]

I only have the newspaper reports to go by, but the quote that I've seen doesn't lead me to the conclusion that the county attorney said that amendment will not bar the county from providing same-sex benefits: "County attorneys also said today they don’t think Amendment One will 
affect the county’s domestic partner benefits. Siler said that the 
county should be able to continue to provide the benefits until it 
receives legal guidance, such as a precedent set by a future court case,
 that says otherwise."


Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/07/2049590/durham-county-affirms-commitment.html#storylink=cpy
The second sentence is quite important in terms of understanding the overall situation-- benefits can continue until there is further legal guidance. I believe that's the legal equivalent to kicking the can down the road and not really giving any opinion at all.

I should be doing work now, so I'll forgo a completely researched email. But there's little doubt that state entities (cities, counties, public schools, universities, etc) offering benefits on the basis of recognizing a "domestic partnership", will be declared unconstitutional. See what happened to Moscow, Idaho when they tried to extend benefits after that state passed their amendment. Idaho's marriage uses the same language as the NC amendment, so is a fair comparison for outcomes.

For another take on it, read this WRAL story, which I think is fair to the facts/arguments on both sides of the marriage amendment. The summary, is basically to continue offering health benefits to non-married partners, cities and towns will have to re-write their policies to give those benefits based on something other than two people being in a marriage like relationship. How exactly you describe such a relationship without "recognizing a domestic legal union" will really be up to the courts to decide.

-chloe


From: rbford at aim.com
Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 12:28:00 -0400
To: inc-list at durhaminc.org
Subject: [Durham INC] Durham County Attorney: Marriage Amendment is NOT a	bar to same sex benefits.

I was able to confirm, that after receiving the "strong' opinion of the County Attorney that the Marriage Amendment is not a bar to the County continuing to provide same sex benefits,the Durham County Commissioners listened to the information, and then passed a resolution reaffirming their commitment to providing benefits to same sex couples.  
Dick





_______________________________________________
Durham INC Mailing List
list at durham-inc.org
http://www.durham-inc.org/list.html
 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://rtpnet.org/pipermail/inc-list/attachments/20120507/f0073ed1/attachment.html>