Spousal Rights Approved For Domestic Partners

The City Council voted to extend spousal privileges to unmarried domestic partners by a five-to-four vote Monday night.

With the approval of the bill, which generated several fiery debates during the summer, Cambridge joins a handful of cities around the country which have approved such measures.

The first of its kind in the Commonwealth, the domestic partnership ordinance will provide medical insurance and other benefits to city and school employees' domestic partners and dependents.

The ordinance defines domestic partnerships as unmarried, unrelated persons. The ordinance will guarantee hospital and prison visitation rights to all qualified Cambridge residents who file a Domestic Partnership Registration form. In addition, it grants access to the school records of children of domestic partners. Currently only married couples have these privileges.

"Domestic-partner legislation is appropriate for the city of Cambridge [as it recognizes the diversity of the city's families]," said Councilor Alice K. Wolf, who introduced the proposal.

According to the 1990 U.S. Census, roughly 26 percent of Americans belong to "Non-traditional families," Wolf said. Those families need support as well."

Opposition to the bill came form the council's Independent faction.

Councillor Sheila T. Russell criticized the ordinance in a pre-session interview as potentially costly, saying it "will leave us open for a lot of abuse."

City Manager Robert W. Healy estimates it will cost the city between $310,000 and $325,000 a year.

But the fiercest opposition came from Councillor William H. Walsh. Walsh continued his fight against the measure Monday night, arguing that it "would simply create a new type of discrimination" by excluding parents and siblings from the same benefits and rights that partners would receive.

Walsh suggested the ordinance be rewritten as a "package in order not to create different classes."

But Councillor Edward N. Cyr argued that the ordinance should pass without immediate revisions because adding additional benefits would delay the approval of the measure.

"All significant civil rights gains happen incrementally," Cyr said.

Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 said the city would consider extending benefits to other "non-traditional families." Reeves announced that a committee of councillors and other specialists would discuss amending the ordinance.

Kathy French, an employee of the National Organization of Women(NOW) who lives in Boston, attacked Walsh's insistence on expanding the ordinance as a backhanded way of defeating the ordinance.

"It's a continuation of trying to find apolitically correct way to avoid the issue. It wasjust a filibuster to not have to say homosexual,"she said.

The bill, the passage of which elicited a furyof applause from more than a dozen spectators inthe Sullivan chamber, will also allow city andschool employees to take leaves of absence, sickleaves and parental leaves related to theirdomestic partner ships.

Ellen Zucker, a Cambridge resident andpresident of the Boston chapter of the NationalOrganization for Women (NOW), praised theordinance as a defeat of the "politics ofintolerance."

"We've got a government willing to stand up forall families, and not only those we think existedin the 1950s," she said.

To obtain official recognition of their status,domestic partners must file a Domestic PartnershipRegistration form with the city clerk and pay a$10 fee.

Councillors in favor of the ordinance includedWolf, Cyr, Reeves, Francis H. Duehay '55 andJonathan S. Myers. Russell, Walsh, Timothy J.Toomey and Walter J. Sullivan opposed it

"It's a continuation of trying to find apolitically correct way to avoid the issue. It wasjust a filibuster to not have to say homosexual,"she said.

The bill, the passage of which elicited a furyof applause from more than a dozen spectators inthe Sullivan chamber, will also allow city andschool employees to take leaves of absence, sickleaves and parental leaves related to theirdomestic partner ships.

Ellen Zucker, a Cambridge resident andpresident of the Boston chapter of the NationalOrganization for Women (NOW), praised theordinance as a defeat of the "politics ofintolerance."

"We've got a government willing to stand up forall families, and not only those we think existedin the 1950s," she said.

To obtain official recognition of their status,domestic partners must file a Domestic PartnershipRegistration form with the city clerk and pay a$10 fee.

Councillors in favor of the ordinance includedWolf, Cyr, Reeves, Francis H. Duehay '55 andJonathan S. Myers. Russell, Walsh, Timothy J.Toomey and Walter J. Sullivan opposed it