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Loading ...Miami unanimously adopts Domestic Partnership Ordinance
06.11.2009 12:29pm EDT
(Miami) The City of Miami Commission voted unanimously in a 5-0 decision Thursday to adopt a Domestic Partnership Ordinance. The City of Miami will now extend the same health benefits to the declared domestic partners and children of city employees that are granted to heterosexual employees of the city.
“Providing employment benefits, including healthcare, to the domestic partners of our City of Miami employees is a common sense idea that has been far too long in coming. This is nothing more than treating people equally,” said Commissioner Marc Sarnoff. “I am proud to say our City is doing the right thing.”Miami is now the third municipality in Miami-Dade County to pass this Ordinance, which was previously adopted by the City of Miami Beach and the City of North Miami. County employees in Miami-Dade County also receive similar benefits thanks to the work of Safeguarding American Values for Everyone (SAVE) Dade, who pushed for the most recent City of Miami Ordinance.
Yes, you read it right. Even in states where the legislature seems to do nothing but write and pass antigay laws, we still move ahead. Granted, the Florida legislature could try to attack this by rewriting home-rule laws, but that could also get too messy to be worth the effort. So, congratulations to gay city workers in Miami!
The Golden Girls would be proud.
drewski, Seconded. … and soon with Marriage Equality in WASH DC… things will really change.
Congrats Maimi! This will allow you to keep the wonderful gay city employees you have and probably draw some more (the beaches don’t hurt either). Another bit of great news for our lives and those of our brothers and sisters. Thanks to everyone who is out there on the front lines and behind the scenes. City by city, state by state.
Christina in AZ
It’s a step in the right direction.
Well,,, Domestic Partnership for just city employees. Ok,, how many gay people do we know who work for the city, how many do we know have same-sex partners/spouses? This is really not touching but a small number of people. OK, it’s a small step and that is good. But Miami should have passed a domestic partner ordinance which ordered every single business within the city to provide equal benefits to their gay workers with same-sex partners. Miami could also have reinforced this ordinance, by requiring that any business doing business with the city, county or state, within the city limits, must abide by the domestic partner ruling.
When Domestic Partnerships were invented in San Francisco, the city actually put teeth into them, therefore making it impossible for a company to refuse. What this city-employee DP register does, doesn’t even compare. While it’s a step, it’s akin to a small company like Starbucks or Caribou Coffee giving DP benefits to their gay employees.
Choke on that Anita Bryant!
Everything like this helps. It is laying the infrastructure of showing the people “in the middle” that gay people deserve equal treatment and respect in the legal and cultural base of our society.
Ultimately more and more people will come to realize that gays are the newest victims of “control freak” religions. And in the end these religions will either change, or become bit players in our society.
And that is exactly the way it should be. Homophobia spread by conservative churches is an affront to God, and a stain on our national soul.
@Rodney–I’m not one to justify incrementalism, but under Florida law, Miami’s commissioners did what they could as far as I know. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see how a subordinate level of government can compel action in the private sector which is all but prohibited by the state (where sovereignty presumably lies). So Rodney, I might suggest sitting back for a moment and acknowledging that even this modest step is really a big step in the Wallyworld called Florida.
even though i dont live there anymore im glad to see my hometown it trying to make things better for lgbt`s reguardless of what the rest of the state thinks. cheers!
im glad to see they are trying to make things better for lgbt`s in my home state reguardless of what the rest of the state thinks! cheers for mia. even though i dont live there anymore
It’s a tiny step, but we need to be making leaps and bounds, in this horrid state. I live in Florida, but I’m still pissed about what happened during the presidential campaign, and the passing of Prop 2. Shame on you “old, straight, people, and religious zealots.