Oregon "Gay Marriage" Amendment May Hurt IBEW Members in Portland

Married gay couples rush to protect their benefits

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND — Kelly Burke was happy to be at home after the election, watching her 3-year-old son convert a box into a spaceship. But she was dreading the arrival of a letter that could change their lives.

"The mailman came this morning and I panicked," said the stay-at-home mom on Nov. 3, one day after Oregon voters decisively approved a ban on gay marriage.

Like many housewives, Burke, 35, relies on her spouse's employer for her own health insurance. But because Burke is a lesbian, it was only this spring — after Multnomah County momentarily flung open the door to gay marriage — that she became a legal "spouse" by marrying her partner of 15 years, Dolores Doyle.

The change in legal status meant she became one of a number of married gay and lesbian spouses in Multnomah County who began receiving comprehensive medical insurance through their partners' employers.

While 11 states — including Oregon — passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage on Election Day, Oregon is the only state among them with legally married gay couples.

Those amendments deal with the right to marry rather than the legal and employment benefits that come with marriage.

Supporters of gay marriage argue those benefits should be available to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

But opponents say the issues are separate, and while they reject gay marriage, many of them agree benefits should apply to homosexuals and heterosexuals alike.

Kelly Clark, attorney for the Defense of Marriage Coalition, said many supporters of Measure 36, the Oregon amendment to ban gay marriage, feel very strongly about fairness when it comes to benefits.

"It's what I've felt from the beginning and I have consistently said this to gay friends," Clark said. "So what kind of alternatives can we craft? And whatever alternative mechanisms we find have to be fair."

The institution of marriage itself, however, is seen as a different matter in the minds of the majority of Oregonians, Clark said, as shown by the decisive 57 percent approval of Measure 36 on Tuesday to amend the Oregon Constitution by limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman.

However, for the 2,961 gay couples who did tie the knot from March 3 until a judge stopped the practice six weeks later, there is now a cloud of uncertainty about their legal status and the protections they stand to lose if their marriages are invalidated.

"When the mailman comes, my first thought is: ‘Oh, my God, here comes the letter. They're cutting me off,'" said Burke, who previously paid $200 a month out of pocket for her own, bare-bones insurance.

"With our marriage came a huge financial relief — as well as huge emotional relief. I could actually sleep at night and know I'll be taken care of. That uncertainty has now crept back in," said Burke.

Tim Nashif, political director of the Defense of Marriage Coalition, said Burke's family is the exception.

"You'd have to search a long way out of these 3,000 couples to find one case like this. And for every one example like this, I can find you 25 similar cases of heterosexual couples that are married with children and have the same problem. You see, it's not specific to them."

Nashif says that if health care is the issue, gay rights groups should lobby the Legislature to extend domestic partnership benefits, not change the institution of marriage.

In a landmark ruling in December 1998, the Oregon Court of Appeals required Oregon Health & Science University to extend insurance benefits to the same-sex partners of its employees after three lesbian couples sued OHSU.

The unanimous ruling was considered the first in the nation to interpret a state constitution to prohibit all discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, granting sexual orientation the same protected status as race, gender and religion in the workplace.

But there since has been little movement in the Legislature toward a clear policy on same-sex partner benefits.

After the Tuesday election, gay couples said they were more worried than before about such matters as passing on their inheritance to their loved ones, adoption rights and power of attorney statements. Some, including Burke, are shopping for insurance policies online.

Because the state refused to acknowledge their marriages pending the outcome of an Oregon Supreme Court lawsuit on the constitutionality of banning same-sex marriages, the couples were never eligible for more than 100 state benefits and 1,100 federal benefits available to heterosexual married couples in Oregon.

But some companies took it upon themselves to view the couples as legally married, extending some benefits — such as insurance coverage — not previously available.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, where Doyle, Burke's partner, works as an electrician, has insured three spouses of gay employees in the past six months, said Lee Centrone, the union's benefits administrator.

The union's leadership will meet next month to determine what will happen to these policies, she said, stressing that nothing has been decided. However, the policies were crafted using temporary language to allow for changes in the legal landscape of gay marriage, Centrone said.

It is also unclear what the passage of Measure 36 means for the current lawsuit in the Oregon Supreme Court, in which nine gay couples — including Burke and Doyle — claim that preventing them from marrying is unconstitutional.

The next hearing in the case was postponed until Dec. 15 to give both sides a chance to argue what effect the amendment will have. The American Civil Liberties Union has already said the language in the Oregon amendment — unlike the other 10 states that approved constitutional bans on gay marriage — is ambiguous and open to interpretation that could allow civil unions.

As a result, the outlook for gay couples is even more complicated legally than before the election.

"These couples stand to lose a lot," said Ken Choe, an attorney with the ACLU Gay and Lesbian Project, who will be representing the gay couples in their case before the state Supreme Court.

"Marriage brings with it hundreds of important protections for families in their times of greatest need, such as sickness and death," Choe said. "And to the extent that these couples are deemed no longer married, they are vulnerable again."

Among the couples who were married in Oregon, many have been together for decades. Some are elderly, a fact which makes pensions, and end-of-life arrangements a real issue.

Mary Beth Brindley, 65, of Portland and her partner Evelyn Hall, 66, have been together for 45 years — a relationship they kept secret for 37 years while living in the deep South.

"I don't know if there are any assisted living facilities around that will allow us to share a room if we are not legally married. That's a very real concern for us," Brindley said.

Copyright © 2004 Democrat-Herald