PA court system employees now entitled to domestic partnerships benefits

Employees of Pennsylvania’s court system who are in same-sex relationships will now be entitled to the same benefits as their heterosexual married counterparts.

The domestic-partner policy, announced Jan. 29 to all employees through a memo with their paystubs, will allow the partners of gay and lesbian staffers to be included on the medical, dental, vision and prescription-drug plans currently offered to married heterosexual couples.

Art Heinz, communications coordinator at the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts, said the policy will apply only to same-sex partners of the employees and will not be offered to unmarried heterosexual couples. Support materials for those wishing to enroll in the program will be available shortly, Heinz said, and the program will officially open March 1.

Heinz said the idea for the initiative originated within the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court has given this subject considerable review over a period of years and concluded that, as a matter of equity, providing these benefits was appropriate for same-sex couples,” Heinz said. “Same-sex couples are uniquely affected by their inability to obtain healthcare coverage, so this was something the court deemed to be appropriate.”

Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffrey said a fellow judge first proposed the idea to him at a conference several years ago.

“I thought about it and somebody in the city’s sanitation department, or any other city worker, has access to medical coverage for their same-sex partners, but a judge does not, and that struck me as odd,” he said. “So I went back and spoke with my colleagues about that and we embarked on about 18 months of dialogue and research and come to a unanimous decision that this was an equal-rights issue that needed to be addressed immediately.” [FULL STORY]