UPS Delivers Reality Check on Same-Sex Civil Unions
When United Parcel Service (UPS) denied health care coverage to a New Jersey lesbian couple, what brown did for the queer community was deliver a reality check on civil unions. In a July 8 article in The Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ reported that UPS sent a letter to employee Gabriael “Nickie” Brazier denying health care coverage to her domestic partner Heather Aurand. The reason? The letter reportedly explained that New Jersey’s decision to recognize same-sex relationships as civil unions, not marriage, tied the company’s hands.
The Star-Ledger article quoted several New Jersey state legislators and lawyers as surprised by the company’s actions, indicating that the issue may come back up in the 2008 legislative session. In fact, it is their surprise that is surprising.
Whether an excuse or a reason, the UPS decision points to the crux of the problem for those tempted to veer onto a path of compromise to accept the term “civil union” rather than “marriage.” The benefits UPS and others offer are governed by federal law. Thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act, federal law specifically defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
According to a report issued by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) in January of 1997 (shortly after the Defense of Marriage Act became law in 1996), there were 1,049 federal laws classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor. And that’s not even the whole story. In explaining their findings to Rep. Henry Hyde (who had requested the report), the GAO noted that “the Code is a compendium of “general and permanent” laws. Although appropriations and annual authorizations, for example, might contain references to marital status, they are typically in effect for a single year, and therefore do not appear in the Code.”
Seven years later, the GAO found 120 new references to marriage rights in an updated report in January 2004, bringing the number to 1,138.
What that creates is an on-going shell game for queers: find the discrimination under the moving shells of rules and regulations that move around regularly. When states like New Jersey enact legislation allowing civil unions, the effort is moot in any situation where federal law may apply.
State-by-state hate
And yes, it is even worse than that seems. According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), individual states pile on more discrimination in their varying interpretation of the rights and responsibilities of marriage. GLAAD lists the state rights denied to same-sex couples as including:
- automatic inheritance
- child custody/parenting/adoption rights
- hospital visitation
- medical decision-making power
- standing to sue for wrongful death of a spouse
- divorce protections
- spousal/child support
- access to family insurance policies
- exemption from property tax upon death of a spouse
- immunity from being forced to testify against one’s spouse
- domestic violence protections and more.
When LGBT couples try to protect themselves, their property, their health, their children, their life decisions and their dying wishes under the laws enacted to protect everyone else, they find a trojan horse called “civil unions” — a compromise on terminology that is really a bait-and-switch that fails to deliver equality.
What the religious right and the Republican Party (pardon the redundancy) have accomplished is legalized discrimination against a group of citizens who do not live by their version of “values.” What they have not accomplished is a rational explanation as to why protecting a gay person in a domestic violence situation or allowing someone to visit their loved one in a hospital is “immoral.”
Defense of Marriage is a quieter hate crime
The U.S. Senate is expected to act on hate crime legislation shortly, legislation named after Matthew Shephard, a young college student killed simply and only because he was gay. It is a shame that a subtler form of violence will not be included in this pending definition of a hate-filled crime. To compromise on protecting children whose parents happen to be gay….to deny people protection under the law because of who they are…this is an example of a “soft bigotry” that can quite literally be a silent killer.
A final irony
Ironically, UPS boasts on it’s “diversity” Web page that “UPS understands that diversity encompasses more than ethnicity, gender, and age. It´s how employees think, the ideas they contribute, and their general attitude toward work and life,” and that “Diversity is encouraged by recognizing the value of people´s different experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. Diversity is a valuable, core component of UPS because it brings a wider range of resources, skills, and ideas to the business.”
Clearly, heterosexual diversity is the only kind UPS is prepared to deliver.
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