NOREEN: Offering same-sex benefits is what's right
Providing health care benefits for the same-sex partners of state employees probably will become law this year.
And expanding health care benefits to include gay domestic partners of city employees stands some chance of being revisited by the Colorado Springs City Council in 2010.
City Hall owns a tortured history when it comes to same-sex benefits. It offered them for a little less than a year and a new council voted the benefits out in 2004, even though only a handful of city employees had applied for them.
This pleased the community's gay bashers and saved the city a little money while enhancing outsiders' perception of Colorado Springs as a place that doesn't like people very much.
Sen. Jennifer Viega, D-Denver, said "the prognosis is good" for SB88, which would extend benefits for gay domestic partners of state employees. The bill has a $116,000 price tag and resides in the House Appropriations Committee; it appears bound for a floor vote, perhaps by the end of the month.
It's becoming mainstream, it's the right thing to do and it's good business.
More than half of the Fortune 500 companies offer the benefits, and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has for years. The Aurora City Council, facing the same recession Colorado Springs is, approved them last month.
At a campaign forum last week, council candidate Bernie Herpin said he is open to the idea of a "plus-one" program, which allows an employee to add any other person, regardless of gender, age, or sexual orientation.
Plus-one packages are about much more than just gay rights. Plus-one programs could include the parent of an employee, or a disabled adult child, for example.
There are at least four votes on the council for that now - Scott Hente, Jan Martin, Larry Small and Jerry Heimlicher, whose opponent, Dave Gardner, also supports plus-one.
The city wouldn't add such a benefit midyear, but there is a decent chance the new council will discuss it for the 2010 budget.
"It's an incredible opportunity," said Ryan Acker, executive director of the Pikes Peak Gay & Lesbian Community Center. "Family means so many things in today's world."
Make no mistake: plus-one programs are more expensive. How much more is hard to predict. Merely adding same-sex benefits is relatively cheap, as the city discovered in 2004.
This is not about money.
It's about a city that was the incubator for an unconstitutional attempt to sanction discrimination against gays. It's about a City Hall whose occupants get edgy talking about gay pride parades and diversity forums.
It's about a city that wants to be seen as a welcoming place - especially when it comes to those Fortune 500 guys.
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