Eva Young wrote: "Many gay people are realizing that the private sector is ahead of Government in alot of areas. The private sector -- NOT government took the lead in offering domestic partner benefits for example. Strict libertarians tend to oppose anti-discrimination laws and hate crimes laws." Actually, the first organizations in this country to offer domestic partnership benefits were in the public sector in the early eighties. Progress in the private sector has only begun to move beyond that in the public sector in only the last 3 years. Much of this movement by the private sector after public sector entities such as San Francisco,CA, Atlanta, GA, and others started to require contractors to offer domestic partnership benefits to their employees. These local ordinaces, along with union efforts, are credited with the adoption of domestic partnership benefits by the big three auto makers. While some private sector businesses can be lauded for their pioneering role in offering dp benefits in the private sector(ie Apple computers), the public sector lead the way for more than 15 years. The public sector initially defined dp benefits as much broader than the concern of same sex couples and in many places continues to do so. The private sector has tended to focus on dp benefits for only same sex couples and sometimes unmarried heterosexual couples. Why should you have to be sleeping with someone to get equal pay for equal work? Dp benefits should be provided to interdependent individuals regardless of the nature of their relationship. If their domestic partner is someone who would take care of them when they were sick and with whom they are financially and domestically interdependent, why should an employee, who is eternally single in the romance department be denied support for their interpendent relationship and "family" simply because they are not romantic partners? David Strand Ward 7 Loring Park __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
