Now that Same-Sex Marriage is Legal, Why Does the City of Portland Continue to Provide Benefits to Domestic Partners?

And who determines the relationship is more than just a friend in need?

By Marty Smith

Now that same-sex marriage is legal, why does the city of Portland continue to provide benefits to domestic partners? And who determines the relationship is more than just a friend in need? —Milt J.

You're barking up two separate trees here: Whom an employer chooses to cover is a (somewhat) separate issue from which relationships are recognized by the state.

The city, like any other employer, has always been free to extend benefits to whomever it wants. Some forward-thinking companies offered benefits to same-sex partners before domestic-partnership laws were even a thing, relying on affidavits to establish the relationship. Others hesitated until civil unions and other legally recognized partnerships came into being in several states.

Even today, plenty of employers don't offer benefits to plain old legally married, opposite-sex, insert-tab-A-in-slot-B-every-other-Friday spouses, much less same-sex cohabitants. It's perfectly legal, as long as all comers get the same lousy deal.

Historically, of course, some employers used the difference in legal standing as a pretext to favor opposite-sex over same-sex relationships. This eventually led to many states' adopting a wildly varying array of civil-union and domestic-partnership statutes.

The whole thing was rendered somewhat moot in 2015, when gay marriage became legal nationwide as part of the Affordable Care Act.* Nevertheless, Oregon's 2007 domestic-partnership law—which, unlike most others, expressly forbids the extension of domestic-partner status to opposite-sex couples—remains on the books.

Your gripe, Milt, appears to be that Oregon's commitment-phobic gays can legally solemnify their relationship as a domestic partnership without quite having to pull that final, till-death-do-us-part trigger of marriage with a capital M. Meanwhile, our opposite-sex couples have to go all in; matrimony or nothing.

Well, maybe so. But consider: When same-sex marriage was legalized, several states converted the civil unions on their books to full marriage, automatically, in perpetuity, without asking first. Would you want to take that chance?

* Psych! But seriously, try to get your racist uncle to believe this at your next family gathering.

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