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HRC Calls on
Office of Personnel Management for DP Coverage

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla): Gay Relationships Demean Marriage

Equal Benefits for Equal Work-Enrollee Won't Cost Taxpayers

Compiled by GayToday

HRC's political director, Winnie Statchelberg

Washington, D.C. -The Office of Personnel Management was called upon Tuesday by the Human Rights Campaign which asked that coverage of same-sex domestic partners of federal employees in a long-term care program for federal workers and their families- be included.

"We urge OPM to make this program truly comprehensive and include gay and lesbian families who deserve equal benefits for equal work," said Winnie Stachelberg, HRC's political director. "These benefits are a matter of fairness and will not cost taxpayers because the insurance premiums will be paid by enrollees."

OPM Director Kay Coles James is slated to decide by October 15 on whether to include coverage of federal workers' domestic partners in the program, "Long-Term Care Insurance for the Federal Family." Opposition to the inclusion is coming from Representative Dave Weldon, R-Fla., the new chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform's Civil Service Subcommittee, who helps oversee the program.

"Rather than redefining marriage and family to include homosexual, lesbian and cohabitating non-married couples, I believe we should be taking steps to encourage traditional marriages," said Weldon in a recent news report. "Extending benefits to other types of relationships only discourages individuals from making a lifelong marriage commitment."

"Weldon's exclusionary, punitive actions against lesbian and gay families are out of step with the fair-minded policies of corporate America, and a meanspirited attempt to deny health care to hardworking federal employees and their families," said Stachelberg. "We hope OPM chooses to be inclusive and respect diversity in the workplace, and we will continue to work to see that domestic partners are included in this important new program."

Currently, OPM has indicated those entitled to benefits would include federal employees, postal workers, military personnel, retirees, survivor annuitants, military reservists at the time they qualify for an annuity, spouses of employees and retirees, adult children (including adopted children and stepchildren) of employees and retirees, unmarried brothers and sisters and parents, parents-in-law and stepparents of employees.

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"With such a wide range of people eligible for the program, it would be wrong and cruel to single out lesbian and gay families for exclusion," added Stachelberg.

Inclusion of domestic partners has drawn congressional support. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., ranking member of the Civil Service Subcommittee, last month sent a letter signed by a bipartisan group of several House members to OPM to request that same-sex life partners receive long-term care coverage.

Additionally, HRC is working with Federal GLOBE, which works for fairness on sexual orientation and gender issues in the federal government, to have domestic partners included in the new benefit. HRC's Stachelberg and GLOBE's Kitti Durham sent a joint letter to OPM's James expressing the need to add domestic partners to the program. Four thousand companies, including 140 of the Fortune 500 firms, have implemented benefit programs that have domestic partner coverage, the letter noted.

Progress on the issue occurred last month in the House when its members voted 226 to 194 - including 41 Republicans - to defeat an amendment that would have denied local funding for domestic partner benefits in Washington as part of the fiscal year 2002 District of Columbia Appropriations bill.