Firms rethinking partners' benefits
The imminent arrival of gay marriage in Massachusetts is prompting some large private employers that offer domestic-partner benefits to same-sex couples to consider ending those benefits.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which currently provides benefits to the domestic partners of gay employees, but not the domestic partners of heterosexual ones, will restrict benefits to married couples, whether they are gay or straight, beginning next year. Babson College in Wellesley has made the same change. Harvard University and
Complicating matters is the possibility that voters will amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage and establish civil unions for gay couples in 2006.
Though the situation is muddy now, some benefits specialists say the advent of gay marriage will lead to the demise of domestic-partner benefits, largely because they are an added expense. Many large Massachusetts employers began offering domestic-partner benefits to be fair to, and attract, gay employees. But once they can get married, the discrimination rationale disappears.
Robert Webb, a partner with the Boston law firm of Nutter, McClennen & Fish who advises companies on benefits, predicted that gay marriage may be "the death knell for domestic-partner benefits."
"The genesis of domestic benefits was that employers had gay and lesbian employees in longstanding relationships that were denied the benefits of their heterosexual counterparts," Webb said. "If you can get married, is there any reason to give domestic partner benefits? I think the answer is no.
"Many employers may simply say it's no longer necessary to give this expensive benefit to people who are unwilling to walk the aisle," Webb said.
Alfred Gray, a lawyer with the Boston law firm of Greenberg Traurig, agreed that there is a large financial incentive for employers to eliminate domestic-partner benefits when health insurance costs are rising at double-digit rates and as more types of employees, such as single parents, are seeking increased benefits.
But Jerry Berger, a spokesman for Beth Israel, described the hospital's decision as "a way of celebrating the equality of gay couples and heterosexual couples."
He said the hospital made the change to create a level playing field. About 40 of the hospital's 5,000 employees receive domestic-partner benefits, which include health, dental, and life insurance beneficiary coverage for workers' partners. But those benefits will be taken away if the couples don't get married by the end of the year.
"We don't view that we are cutting benefits," Berger said. "We are putting homosexual couples on the same footing as heterosexual couples. Right now, if you are an unmarried heterosexual couple in this hospital, you don't receive any benefits. Now that [homosexual couples] have the same right to marry, they have the same treatment."
Joanne Ayoub, a Beth Israel employee whose same-sex partner has been receiving benefits for the past five years, said that she doesn't fault the hospital for making the change. Ayoub and her partner were planning to get married anyway, but they will speed the process to meet the Dec. 31 deadline.
"Nothing will actually change for me whatsoever," she said. "I have been with my partner for 14 years, and so this is an opportunity to have a choice in front of me to actually get married. It's something that we would have loved to have done years ago. The organization is sort of celebrating with me, recognizing that. I actually think it's quite fair."
Other institutions that offer domestic partner benefits to gay partners but not straight ones may follow Beth Israel's lead. For now, Harvard University will continue to recognize same-sex partnerships as well as same-sex marriages, but that may change, officials say.
"We are not going to do anything abruptly," Polly Price, associate vice president for human resources, said in an internal publication that will be sent to Harvard employees next week. "It is anticipated, however, that this determination will be revisited within the next two years and that for purposes of benefits eligibility, the university may require marriage of all couples, as it does currently with opposite-sex couples."
Only 106 Harvard employees have signed up to receive partner benefits, out of about 17,000 employees, said Merry Touborg, Harvard's human resources spokeswoman.
Some companies that currently offer domestic-partner benefits to both gay and straight couples in longstanding relationships say they will continue to do so, despite the cost.
"What we consider domestic partners, whether same-sex or opposite sex, are couples who maintain committed relationships and live together," said EMC spokeswoman Anne Pace.
Officials of the Globe, which offers domestic partner benefits to gay couples, say they are still examining their policies.
Domestic-partner benefits became popular in the mid- to late- 1990s. Employers have not been required to offer them to gay employees' partners, though one-third of Fortune 500 companies now do. Small employers are less likely to offer the benefits.
The state of Massachusetts, Boston College, and Boston University don't offer domestic-partner benefits.
In another gay-marriage development, Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday that his administration would "take a stab" at formulating detailed rules for gay and lesbian couples seeking to marry in Massachusetts after May 17, but that he would be looking to the courts and the Legislature to resolve some of the confusion stemming from the questions that will arise as the new rights are exercised.
Romney's administration is preparing detailed instructions for city and town clerks on how to issue marriage licenses for same sex couples.
"Our lawyers are going through line by line," Romney said. "We'll do our best to [apply] the laws as best we understand them."
Training sessions for clerks will begin on May 4. Since 1977, clerks have not been required to actively enforce the restrictions on marriage imposed by a 1913 law that makes Massachusetts marriages void for out-of-state couples if they would be void in their home states. Those clerks have been instructed to accept an oath of eligibility in lieu of evidence.
"One of the issues that was raised -- we'll have to put on our instruction sheet -- . . . raises the question of a couple that's joined by civil union in Vermont that comes here, has not been divorced of that civil union, and now wants to marry other parties, other people," Romney said yesterday, after an event at the Seaport Hotel. "What do we do then? We're going to take our best stab at these, but I would far prefer having legislative guidance on issues like these, so that we can follow the laws as best as we understand them."
Marcella Bombardieri and Yvonne Abraham of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
