"Civil Unions" - Not All They're Cracked Up To Be

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, I posted about New Jersey's problems with enforcing its Civil Union Law. At that time I didn't know many details; just that it was happening with increasing frequency.

I received this email from Garden State Equality just a few minutes ago. It explains some of the reasons why the New Jersey Civil Union Act isn't working while the Massachusetts marriage law evidently is.

I'm still waiting for God to come down and strike Massachusetts but it hasn't happened yet.

If you didn't see yesterday's Sunday Star-Ledger investigation revealing how civil unions in New Jersey are failing to provide equality, here it is, below.

The article describes how New Jersey's civil unions law is falling way short of providing equality to same-sex couples -- specifically how one firm, UPS, is providing benefits to married same-sex couples in Massachusetts but not to civil-unioned couples in New Jersey.

Garden State Equality has other cases like this. An investigation in last week's Washington Post reported how employers in Massachusetts, where there is real marriage equality, are not invoking a federal law loophole, whereas employers in New Jersey are.

Same-sex couples in Massachusetts are consistently getting equality. Same-sex couples in New Jersey are not. The word "marriage" is making all the persuasive difference in the world. That's why Garden State Equality is fighting day and night, with all our blood, sweat and tears, to bring marriage equality to New Jersey by the end of next year.

To help us win marriage equality in New Jersey, you may donate to Garden State Equality online at www.GardenStateEquality.org. Thanks so much.
Star-Ledger, Sunday, July 8, 2007
In denying benefits, firm says civil union not marriage's equal

By Robert Schwaneberg

A company that provides health care coverage to married gay couples in Massachusetts has denied the same benefits to a couple who entered a civil union in New Jersey.

United Parcel Service's decision to deny coverage to a Toms River couple boils down to a single word: New Jersey law does not call them "spouses."

"We were supposed to be treated equally. We should be treated equally," said Heather Aurand, who was denied health care coverage by UPS, which employs Aurand's civil union partner, Gabriael "Nickie" Brazier.

In its letter denying coverage, UPS said it does provide health benefits to its employees' spouses, including spouses of the same sex who are married in Massachusetts. But it said New Jersey's decision to recognize same-sex relationships as civil unions rather than marriages tied its hands.

Gay rights activists called it the starkest proof to date that New Jersey's civil union law has failed to deliver on its promise to provide all the benefits of marriage, but by a different name.

"The Legislature said: You folks aren't worthy of marriage. That has an impact," said David Buckel, a lawyer with the gay rights organization Lambda Legal. "If the New Jersey Legislature would just take back the invitation to discriminate, UPS would do the right thing."

"This is a problem the Legislature created," added Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality. "Civil unions are never in our lifetime going to be respected by employers like marriage."

Garden State Equality has received 176 complaints from couples who said their civil unions were not honored, Goldstein said, adding that it has created great disillusionment within the gay community.

In its letter, UPS said the New Jersey Legislature, in enacting the state's civil union law, "did not go as far as Massachusetts and afford same-sex couples the ability to marry. Had the New Jersey Legislature done that, you could have added Ms. Aurand as a spouse under the plan."

The letter concluded that "New Jersey law does not treat civil unions the same as marriages."

"I'm shocked," said Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo (D-Essex), who sponsored the civil union law. "We made it clear through the language and the intent that when it came to issues like this, we fully expected civil-unioned couples would be covered."

Tom Prol, a trustee of the New Jersey State Bar Association, said UPS's position was "a misinterpretation, clearly, of the civil union law." He noted that law states: "Civil union couples shall have all of the same benefits . . . as are granted to spouses in a marriage."

But benefit plans offered by many employers, including UPS, are governed by federal law, which recognizes only the union of a man and a woman as a marriage. Those companies are allowed, although not required, to deny benefits to partners in other relationships.

In its letter, UPS said the health plan it negotiated for its workers provides benefits only to "a spouse as defined under applicable state law." It added that the company "cannot unilaterally change plan provisions outside of the collective-bargaining process." A message left at UPS headquarters in Atlanta seeking further comment from the company was not returned.

Aurand and Brazier said they were hopeful when Gov. Jon Corzine, while signing the civil union law in December, declared: "Through our actions today, we will provide equal rights for same-sex couples."

"That's what we believed," said Brazier, 37, a driver for UPS for six years. She and Aurand, 36, met seven years ago in Pennsylvania and bought their house in Toms River in 2001.

"We plan on staying together the rest of our lives," said Aurand, who became a stay-at-home mom after their son Zachary was born in 2004. They formed their civil union on Feb. 21, days after the new law took effect and the week before the birth of their twins, Joshua and Riley.

Brazier, who knew UPS provided health benefits to same-sex spouses in Massachusetts, expected it would extend them to Aurand. But the company said no.

"It was devastating. We were for certain we would get coverage," Aurand said. "Financially it puts a burden on us. We have to pay a couple of hundred dollars a month that we could be using for other things."

Other same-sex couples have encountered the same problem because of the conflict between state law and the federal Defense Of Marriage Act, which does not recognize same-sex unions.

Buckel said the case of Brazier and Aurand is a new wrinkle, as they were turned down not because they are of the same sex, but because of the label New Jersey gave to their relationship.

"It's probably going to be happening more and more," Buckel said.

Already, Tom Walton of East Brunswick, a driver for UPS for 14 years, said he was verbally rejected when he sought health coverage for his civil union partner, Mermon Davis. He said he has not gotten a formal explanation.

"It's upsetting," Walton said. "We were told this law was going to give us the same benefits as everybody else, even though they weren't calling it marriage. It just goes to show when something is separate, it's never equal."

Walton, 42, said he and Davis, 44, have been together 15 years and had their civil union ceremony over the Memorial Day weekend.

Buckel said the next step will be "to try to persuade UPS to change its mind," adding that Lambda Legal also will be talking to lawmakers about changing the law to allow same sex couples to marry.

Goldstein added, "We've heard from many legislators that this is something they want to deal with in 2008."

As for the civil union law, he said, "They know it's a disaster. In the real world, civil unions are to marriage what artificial sweetener is to sugar. It's not the same thing and it leaves a bad aftertaste."

COMMENTS:

ThomasLB said...

This comment is off topic (so you can delete if after you read it and won't hurt my feelings), but I just noticed under Settings / Formatting, at the very bottom of the page, there is an option called "Enable Float Alignment." It says to uncheck the box if you're having formatting problems.

Have you tried that yet?

Monday, July 09, 2007 6:29:00 AM

ThomasLB said...

I knew two guys who shared an apartment. One was mentally handicapped, one was physically handicapped. They looked after each other and cared for each other. They weren't gay, they were close like brothers.

One of them died. His body was stored for a year at the county morgue, then buried in a pauper's grave. Because they were not related, his friend was not allowed to claim the body and give him a funeral and a headstone.

I wish there was a way for anybody that wanted to call themselves a family to legally accept responsibility for each other.

When going "by the book" hurts people, that damn book needs to be thrown out!

Before I boycott UPS, I'm going to write a polite letter asking them to revisit their policy. (That's really just a formality, like playing the national anthem before a baseball game.)

Monday, July 09, 2007 6:50:00 AM

Worried said...

ThomasLB; thank you for the tip re: our blog problems. I do have "no" checked and have ever since I started blogging. Should I check "yes"? I have no idea what to do with the code printed there.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 12:27:00 AM

Granny said...

WA, I'll check it on granny and see if it's checked yes or no (providing I can find it).

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 12:34:00 AM

AM

ThomasLB said...

It should be on "No" if you're having formatting problems, and since you already have it on "No," that wasn't the problem. Rats- I wish it really was that simple.

Did you get the same email from UPS that I did? Here is the text of it below- they are blaming everything on the Teamster's Union:


-- -- -- -- -- --
I saw your post. Hopefully, you'll be openminded to hear the UPS viewpoint and reconsider your opinion about UPS.

As a matter of corporate policy, UPS currently offers same sex benefits to all non-union employees -- management as well as administrative workers. This includes all such employees in New Jersey, even though the state has failed to recognize gay partners as married spouses. Beyond health care, UPS also offers benefits such as medical leave, pension rights, funeral leave, relocation and transfer benefits. We recently added same-sex benefits as part of a new contract with UPS pilots too.

UPS doesn't legally have the right to give same sex benefits to Ms. Brazier who is cited in this situation because she is part of the Teamsters and any changes to benefits have to be done as part of the collective bargain process.

The contact expires in 2008. Absent a law that specifically categorizes same sex partners as married spouses such as in Mass., UPS cannot unilaterally change a union contract to offer same sex benefits. We have already brought up this issue to the Teamsters for consideration.

The situation regarding Ms. Brazier and her partner is just as disappointing to UPS as it is to them. But for unionized employees, we can only address the issue through the union at contract renewal time.

Lynnette
UPS PR

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 11:16:00 AM

ThomasLB said...

I have a little post up over at my website about this. LINK

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 12:12:00 PM

Selma - March 7, 1965

Yesterday was the "official" observance of the march over the Edward Pettus bridge at Selma, Alabama and on to Montgomery. I intended to have a post up then but between family and the computer/internet, couldn't get it done.

Trying again.

The march started with a few hundred people. By the time of the 3rd march (they were beaten back when they first tried, the number had grown to 25,000, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and current Congressman John Lewis. If Sheriff Jim Clark though he'd put down a budding revolt with his thugs, tear gas, fire hoses, and horses, he couldn't have been more wrong. The march attracted the media from all over the world and pictures of his brutality were on every t.v. set. It was the beginning of the end for overt racists.


Three people died: Jimmie Lee Jackson, James Joseph Reeb, and Viola Gregg Liuzzo. Jimmie Lee Jackson died in Marion, AL His death triggered the march. James Joseph Reeb was assaulted leaving a black restaurant, and Viola Liuzzo was killed on her way back to her home in Michigan.

There will always be racists and bigots among us but they no longer have the open support of the law in this country. Covert support is something else again of course but I'll save the rant about open and fair elections for another time.


This site has information from many different sources along with a collection of photos. One of the articles is a personal reflection by Unitarian/Universalist minister Orloff W. Miller written in 2000, 35 years after the march. He was with James Reeb when he was killed.

Here it is, in its entirety.

Selma in Retrospect
Rev. Orloff W. Miller

As we close out the 20th century, it is difficult to recall what the American Civil Rights Struggle was all about back in 1965 -- exactly 100 years after the end of a Civil War which resulted in freedom for Negro slaves throughout the United States, but left them in social, economic, and political bondage. After the Civil War, whites and Negroes were kept physically and psychologically segregated throughout the South by separate (and unequal) public facilities. Hotels, schools, restaurants, and especially toilets and drinking fountains were all segregated. Whenever my seminary roommate traveled by Greyhound bus from Boston University to his home in North Carolina, as he crossed into the "Land of Dixie" (ironically, at Washington DC, the nation's capital) he had to suffer the demeaning humiliation of surrendering his seat up front with white friends, to sit or stand with other Negroes in the back of the bus.

In 1955, during our second year of school, that type of segregation on interstate buses was officially banned -- but lacked enforcement. It took another six years and several groups of "Freedom Riders", who somehow lived through beatings and fire bombings, to finally integrate those interstate buses.

Local city buses throughout the South were also rigidly segregated until 1956, when buses in Montgomery, Alabama (capital of the Confederacy) were integrated by order of the U.S. Supreme Court in December of that year. The change came after a year-long boycott by local Negroes, using the technique of non-violent resistance pioneered by Gandhi in India. Proudly, they walked to work rather than use segregated buses -- led by a 26 year old minister (who had just earned his doctorate at Boston University), the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fast food counters and restaurants in Southern cities began to be integrated in 1960 by Negro students, using "sit-in" tactics taught by the newly formed Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer included sit-ins, teach-ins, community organizing and voting rights education in Negro communities -- sponsored by a coalition of Civil Rights organizations (including SNCC), and staffed by students (Negro and white, from both North and South), of whom three were murdered.

Voting rights became the primary focus of the civil rights movement. Because Americans have never accepted the European tradition of registering locally with every residence change, for elections to be possible in America, citizens have to, at least, register to be able to vote. However, some barriers to voting have been in existence from the beginning. At first, only white male property owners were permitted to vote in all states. Women did not gain the right to vote until 1920 - while property ownership as a requirement gradually gave way to some form of poll tax in most states, which had to be paid before voting in an election.

Negroes gained the right to vote following the Civil War, but new barriers were very quickly erected - usually in the form of a literacy test. In 1961, Mississippi law required the prospective voter to fill out a 21-question form, and be able to interpret any section of the state constitution which the local registrar might request - Mississippi's constitution had 285 sections! And the voting rules were quite arbitrary. As late as 1952, throughout the South, only 20% of those Negroes eligible were registered to vote. And in many rural counties of Mississippi and Alabama, the number of Negroes registered to vote was far less than that. By the 1960s, the right to vote, a basic tenet of democracy, had thus become an explicit and very vocal demand of the "freedom" movement.

At the August 1963"March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," I was among the more than 250,000 participants - - including a contingent of students and adults from the Unitarian Universalist Association who heard Martin Luther King deliver his now famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Meanwhile, the associate minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington had been quietly working with an interracial religious coalition seeking to integrate neighborhood housing. In late 1964, he moved to Boston to work with Quakers in a similar neighborhood interracial housing program. This UU minister (and former Presbyterian) was the Reverend James J. Reeb.

In January 1965, the UUA sent a four-person staff team to Mississippi to assess the overall struggle for civil rights, and to review the role of UU's in that movement. As staff person in charge of networking the UU student and faculty activities across North America -- although a relative newcomer to UUism (I was born and educated as a Methodist) -- I was able to document the early and continuing participation of UU students and faculty in voting rights education, sit-ins, the rebuilding of burned Negro churches, and other civil rights projects. Meanwhile, that same month, two UU theological students from the Boston area were jailed in Selma, Alabama for helping Negroes in that city who were attempting to register to vote. All of this helped to prepare me, as a minister, to respond to the crisis in Selma two months later.

Selma, Alabama -- located in the very "Heart of Dixie" -- had served as the munitions arsenal of the Confederacy during the Civil War. A century later, in 1965, Selma's stubborn and rigorous enforcement of the South's segregation laws -- especially its systematic denial to Negroes of their voting rights, where only 2% of eligible Negroes were registered to vote -- made it a logical target for joint action by SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Sheriff James Clark epitomized the forces of bigotry in Selma, while John Lewis (national chairman of SNCC) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (then president of SCLC) represented the skilled outside leadership needed by the local Selma civil rights organizations.

On Sunday, March 7, 1965, the evening news on American television featured pictures of civil rights marchers in Selma at the foot of the U.S. highway bridge over the Alabama River. Having been led over the bridge by John Lewis, they were being tear gassed and beaten by Sheriff Clark's posse which was mounted on horseback. The following day, Martin Luther King sent telegrams to religious leaders across the U.S., asking ministers of all faiths to join him in a voting rights march from Selma to the Alabama state capital in Montgomery, some 47 miles (80 km) away, where he proposed to present a petition to Governor George Wallace, an avowed segregationist.

That night, I and scores of other UU's (among us, James Reeb) and ministers of many faiths flew overnight from Boston to Atlanta, and then to Montgomery the following morning, from whose airport we were then transported by SCLC in trucks and autos to Selma. We were joined by ministers, rabbis, priests (and seven nuns) representing many parts of America. We attempted to march that afternoon, but were turned back peacefully in compliance with a federal court order. Regrouping, we listened to Dr. King as he pleaded with us to stay in Selma for a few days, hoping that the court would reverse its decision. James Reeb and I, along with many others, elected to stay -- even though most of us had come without even a toothbrush.

That evening, James Reeb (Jim) and I ate with a number of other UU ministers, including Clark Olsen of Berkeley, California in a downtown Negro restaurant. As Clark, Jim, and I left Walker's Cafe we were attacked by four or five segregationist bigots. Jim's skull was crushed with the blow of a club from behind. Clark and I, having escaped with only scrapes and bruises, managed to get help for Jim -- but he died two days later at Alabama's University Hospital in Birmingham.

Jim's death galvanized the nation -- a nation which had hardly noticed a few days before when Jimmie Lee Jackson, a local Negro, had been shot and killed during a similar demonstration -- but James Reeb was a white minister from the North, and President Johnson sent yellow roses to his hospital room, and called him "that good man."

Only a few hours after a memorial service for Jim in Selma, the President announced, in a televised address before a joint session of Congress, his introduction of new voting rights legislation -- ending his speech with words affirming his support for the civil rights movement: "and we shall overcome!" One day later, a federal judge gave permission for a March from Selma to Montgomery. And by mid-August, Congress had passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Soon after, Negroes registered to vote in ever increasing numbers, and have since elected representatives to the Selma city Council, to state and city offices throughout the South (and North) and to the U.S. Congress.
The historic five-day march from Selma to Alabama's capitol took place from the 22nd to the 25th of March, 1965, protected by federal troops on orders >from the President. But in its aftermath, Unitarian Universalists would claim another martyr -- this time a woman, a mother of two, who was active in the First UU Church in Detroit. She was shot dead at the wheel of her car while ferrying demonstrators back to Selma following the march. But the nation (even UUs) would soon forget the death of Viola Liuzzo -- after all, she was just a housewife!

At this writing, a lasting memorial is planned at UUA headquarters in Boston, to help preserve the memory of three persons who gave their lives in 1965, that every American--- without regard to race, religion, sex, or nation of birth -- might fully and freely exercise the right to vote in the world's oldest democracy: Jimmie Lee Jackson, James Joseph Reeb, and Viola Gregg Liuzzo.

Rev. Orloff W Miller
European Unitarian Universalists, Minister-at-Large
and participant in the 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery

Bait and Switch

Does it come as any surprise that politicians lie? When the religious right was campaigning for the anti-gay marriage law last year, they assured the voters that it wouldn't affect any protections currently in place for all domestic partners.

They have changed their tune as most of us knew they would.

I live in California which hasn't yet approved gay civil unions or marriage but has approved domestic partners. They don't receive many of the protections which automatically come with marriage but it's a start.

We've been successful so far in beating back the challenges here.

Since anything that affects my son also affects me, I'm quite active in the struggle for gay rights. I would have been in any event but for me it's personal.

Gay adoption/foster care is legal here. I've probably said this before but if I don't make it to see the girls grown (youngest now 11), I'd like their Uncle Tim to take over. If the religious right gets their way, that won't happen. Even if he does, any legal rights he would have in California might not carry over to another state. I don't understand why "full faith and credit" doesn't apply but evidently it doesn't. It isn't fair and it isn't right.

I visit several blogs written by GLBT adoptive and foster parents. Daddy, Papa & Me writes about his family life in San Francisco with their beautiful adopted daughter. He also writes about gay rights and spells out the Michigan outrage better than I ever could. It's personal to him as well as to me.

I borrowed the title of this post from him. Bait and switch says it all.

What If the Tables Were Turned?

My friend, Yondalla, (with a lot of help from her family) fosters gay teenage boys. She is loving, compassionate, and brilliant. She's also honest about the joys, the sorrows, successes, failures, and sometimes the frustrations of working within the "system". In her "spare" time, she's a University teacher.

She and I "met" when she noticed the PFLAG link on granny and we've become close online friends. For any who may not know, that's Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (since expanded to include transgender and bisexual. My two sons and I helped start the chapter here. One is gay, the other isn't but they've always supported each other.

Her post today talks about singling out and stereotyping. It's a topic we come back to often in our meetings.

Thanks, Yondalla.

Black History Month

Our 11 year old Rebecca came into the kitchen the other day, all excited.

"Grandma, the first black person to play Major League baseball was Jackie Robinson."

"Right, good for you, Rebecca to know that."

"And the second is Barry Bonds!!".

"No, Rebecca".

"Yes, grandma".

"Rebecca, the second was Larry Doby. It was when grandma was a little girl".

I'm showing my age here. I'm still not sure she believes me.

I've been thinking about Larry off and on ever since and what it must have been like to be number two. All of the pain, very little of the glory. A sportscaster said that being the second in baseball was rather like being the second person to invent the telephone.

I make no apologies for being a baseball fan. I grew up listening to the Brooklyn Dodgers on the radio from the mid 40's on. I was crushed when they moved to L.A. about the same time I moved to San Francisco. I remember when Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers in 1947 and, even young as I was, I remember what he endured. It may have been the beginning of my activism even though I didn't realize it at the time. I knew the hatred was wrong.

And I remember Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians. He came in not quite 3 months after Robinson; the second in major league baseball and the first in the American League. I listened to the 1948 World Series even though Brooklyn wasn't involved. Cleveland played the then Boston Braves. Cleveland won the Series and Larry won the 4th game with a home run.

He played for many years, one of the unsung journeymen of the game. The Hall of Fame finally elected him in 1998.

Much later he was second again; the second black major league manager (White Sox). Frank Robinson was the first.

After retiring, he spent much of the rest of his long life working to benefit children. He died in 2003 at the age of 79. Quite a guy.

There must be a reason I've been thinking about him. I wish he'd received more recognition for his low key but lifelong contribution to civil rights and for breaking the American League color bar. On the other hand, he may have been first at something. Perhaps his career and his status as "second" was the beginning of acceptance of athletes as baseball players who happen to be black rather than black baseball players.