Red Meat

I read in our student paper the other day that Governor Jan Brewer decided to throw a little red meat to her social conservative brethren running the state legislature by announcing a drastic cut -- nay, death knell -- to the University of Arizona's domestic partner benefits.

Signed into law as H.B. 2013 about a week ago, the state recovers $3 million of the already $625 million spent on health benefits and state support. According to the Daily Wildcat article, the decisive cut eliminates state benefits for 170 partners at the University of Arizona. Of these, 30 were same-sex couples and the other 140 were unmarried heterosexuals.

Spokesperson Liz Sawyer of OUT-Reach, a UA group advocated for the now bereft benefits, commented that she did not apply because she believed they wouldn't last.

Chun and Evans include the following abstract in a 2005 article entitled "Maximizing Your Institution's Talent Strategy through a Domestic Partner Benefits Plan:"

...as part of a comprehensive total compensation package, implementation of a domestic partner benefits plan underscores the importance of an inclusive environment that recognizes and embraces diversity in attracting and retaining top talent.

The University of Wisconsin press release mentioning their new benefits package supports such claims.

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities found that domestic partner benefits not only makes sense in education, but in business overall as well. Citing growing opposition to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and "a new middle ground in society's culture wars," employers win by retaining solid talent and edging out over a competitor.

First, while nonheterosexual life partners are characterized as the primary beneficiaries in line for a domestic partner benefits package, such packages also include explicit considerations for children and guardianship arrangements established outside of the realm of traditional marriage.

Second, domestic partner benefits offer a competitive shopping alternative for health and well-being services otherwise difficult to find when venturing alone into the marketplace.

Finally, a university offering robust domestic benefits not only for, say, same-sex couples but also proactive arrangements for enhanced child care provisions, maternity leaves, and family life accommodations throughout the tenure process demonstrates an unyielding commitment to recruiting and retaining top staff.

Even the term "domestic partner" is hard to pin down. Often assumed to include only same-sex couples, a domestic partner can be a person involved in a committed heterosexual relationship who opts to choose pathways to preserve legal and financial independence. This independence can be certified through prenuptial documentation and the maintenance of separate accounts. It is "married but filing separately" without the chapel bells ringing.

Governor Brewer's fast one qualifies as red meat not only for the appeasement of a socially conservative political constituency in the legislature, but for the ravenous support it garnered without the appearance of long-term thought.

Stripped of the Republican founding principle of fiscal responsibility, a legislator had to call it for what it is. With former Governor Napolitano having left to join Obama's Cabinet as head of Homeland Security, Brewer could satisfy the whims of her Republican colleagues, like Senator Paton who claimed that this was payback for Napolitano's executive order that instituted domestic partner benefits in the first place. It was never about money.

Representative Matt Heinz of Tucson called the bill "shortsighted and mean," arguing that if those stripped from the domestic benefit dole turn over to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (ACCESS) to get care, the $3.5 million in savings would quickly turn into a $7.5 million deficit.

President Shelton has expressed dissatisfaction with the state law and has offered assistance to help those displaced partners recover alternative benefits.

While a majority of Americans believe that same-sex couples should be granted the same rights and privileges in marriage as their heterosexual counterparts, and even more believe that employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong, it appears that H.B. 2013 is not set for appeal anytime soon.

It is this sad blogger's opinion that, so long as a given minority group can be vilified for not fitting so-called norms and traditional values, political opportunists like Brewer will continue to succeed in stripping away rights. So long as it gets her one more vote from the reddest of the red regions out here in the desert, state legislatures will continue to sacrifice state economic health for political partisanship.