Kentucky School Blasted for Plan to Offer 'Domestic Partner' Benefits
by Jim Brown
July 21, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A Kentucky pro-family group is protesting a decision by the University of Louisville's Board of Regents to award health insurance benefits to so-called "domestic partners" of school employees. Board trustees voted 14-1 to allow unmarried domestic partners, homosexual and heterosexual, to take part in the benefits program.
That vote makes Louisville the first public university in Kentucky, reportedly, to endorse a plan that would allow unmarried homosexual and straight partners of school faculty and staff to take part in the school's benefits plan. Trustee Bill Stone claims the move does not constitute an endorsement of homosexual "marriage"; rather, he says it indicates that Louisville is "an enlightened institution."
However, Family Foundation of Kentucky senior policy analyst Martin Cothran says, contrary to what Stone claims, this plan does endorse homosexual marriage. The pro-family advocate believes any true conservative would recognize that. "This particular trustee portrays himself as a conservative," he notes; "but if marriage is not one of those things that conservatives are trying to conserve, then there's no point of being one."
With the new policy, Cothran contends, the University of Louisville is sending a message that it no longer intends to encourage traditional marriage and now sees sexual unions between unmarried individuals who live together as being equal to traditional marriage in validity. And extending health insurance benefits to these so-called domestic partners "puts a state institution's stamp of approval on this," he asserts.
The Family Foundation spokesman says trustees who voted for the plan to extend health insurance benefits to unmarried employees' domestic sexual partners are "basically saying that [domestic partnership] is equivalent to marriage in their eyes. And for a public institution to do this at taxpayer expense," he adds, "is what's really upsetting people, I think."
Through this policy, University of Louisville officials are now prioritizing "live-in, non-married sexual relationships," Cothran says. And the administrators are doing so "over and above familial relationships even," he asserts, "because if you have your Aunt Matilda living with you and she needs medical care, the university isn't going to cover it. But they're going to cover your live-in sexual partner."
Cothran is denouncing the domestic partner benefits plan adopted by Louisville's Board of Regents as a bad step on a slippery slope. He says he fully expects the university to be sued over the new policy.
Kentucky was one of 11 states in November 2004 to pass a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. The initiative was approved overwhelmingly by 75 percent of the state's voters.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
