(GayWebSource.com – Boca Raton, Florida) — After months of avoiding the issues, this past week the Boca Raton City Council finally directed staff to prepare materials to update city equal opportunity ordinances and policies to include both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression.” The City Council also directed staff to prepare materials concerning implementing domestic partnership benefits.
The materials will be presented at a workshop next month, following which the City Council Members will be given the opportunity to vote on the issues.
“It is encouraging that Boca Raton is finally going to formally address issues relating to equal protection and equal benefits for city’s lesbian, gay and gender nonconforming employees,” said Rand Hoch, President and Founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council (PBCHRC).
PBCHRC brought these issues to the City Council’s attention nine months ago when the City refused sign a $1.2 million hazardous waste cleanup agreement for the sole reason that the agreement included an LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination clause.
The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council is a local non-profit organization which, for the last 25 years, has been dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. The organization has also been the prime mover for domestic partnership benefits for public employees in Palm Beach County for more than two decades.
“While it is often unwise to predict what elected officials will do when any issue comes up for a vote, based on the comments made at the meetings, it appears likely that at least four of the five members of the Boca Raton City Council intend to bring the city into the 21st century by updating city ordinances and policies to protect the city’s gay, lesbian and gender nonconforming employees from workplace discrimination,” said Hoch.
PBCHRC also asked the City Council to extend domestic partnership benefits so that the families of all city employees will be entitled to the same benefits – regardless of whether those families are based on a marriage recognized by the State of Florida or on a domestic partnership based recognized by Palm Beach County. However, when the City Council addressed domestic partnership benefits, the discussion got slightly contentious.
“I understand there is language in Florida legislation that could potentially prohibit recognition of domestic partnerships,” said Council Member Anthony Majhess, who stated he had conducted research on the matter. “If that is the case, before we move forward with an ordinance, I would like to have that further explored.”
City Attorney Diane Grub Frieser stated that she too had conducted research, primarily on the Marriage Protection Amendment to the Florida Constitution which was enacted by the voters in 2008. The amendment reads as follows:
Marriage defined.–Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.
“The question is whether or not the criteria for domestic partnership are substantial equivalent of marriage,” Frieser told the City Council. “The term is uncertain in my mind.”
Majhess suggested the city seek an opinion from the Florida Attorney General.
Although there was little objection to seeking an Attorney General l opinion, a majority of the City Council Members appeared to be inclined to move forward on domestic partnership benefits once issues were clarified.
“I can not believe the City Attorney and Council Member Majhess conducted research and then still suggested asking for an opinion from the Attorney General,” said Hoch, a retired judge who now mediates employment disputes throughout Florida. “What research did they actually conduct?”
The issue of whether the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment had any impact on domestic partnerships was addressed in 2008 when the proponents of the amendment had to get a determination from the both the Florida Attorney General and the Florida Supreme Court on whether the specific language met the requirements to be placed on the ballot.
In the brief filed by the amendment’s proponent, Florida4marriage, told the Florida Supreme Court:
The Amendment does not affect laws which do not provide the same rights, protections and benefits and impose the same responsibilities, obligations and duties as are granted to and imposed upon married couples.
By limiting the prohibition to legal unions “treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof,” the Amendment includes the language necessary to prevent the undermining of marriage that occurred in Massachusetts, California,Vermont and Connecticut without affecting non-equivalent legal unions such as the domestic partnership registries currently in place in several Florida jurisdictions.
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So long as a law, ordinance or regulation does not grant unmarried couples the same panoply of rights, protections, benefits, responsibilities, obligations and duties as are granted to and imposed upon married couples, it will not be affected by the proposed Amendment.Neither existing domestic partnership laws …. nor any future such laws which grant less the full panoply of rights, protections, benefits, responsibilities, obligations and duties of marriage … will be affected by Proponent’s Amendment.
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In addition, the domestic partnership ordinances in Miami Beach, West Palm Beach and Key West will not conflict with Proponent’s Amendment, since they, like Broward County, confer only limited rights on domestic partners.
Ultimately, Florida Supreme Court allowed the amendment to be placed on the 2008 ballot. The Court’s opinion provided:
The terminology here, “substantial equivalent,” is a phrase which is used both in the proposed amendment and the summary, that is frequently used and understood by the common voter, and which does not require special training in the legal profession to comprehend its meaning. The plain meaning of these words, according to dictionary definition, is clear that the chief purpose of this amendment is to ensure that that unions between same-sex couples that are treated virtually identically to marriage will not be recognized in Florida.
“The fact that the City Attorney did not provide this information to the City Council is very telling,” said Hoch. “Her actions over the past several years clearly demonstrate her bias against lesbian, gay and gender nonconforming individuals.”
“Why the City Council allows her to work on discrimination issues of any kind is beyond all comprehension,” said Hoch.
As a result of the efforts of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, domestic partnership benefits are currently offered by the municipalities of Delray Beach, Jupiter, Lake Worth, Palm Beach Gardens, Wellington and West Palm Beach, as well as by Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach County School District, the Port of Palm Beach, the Palm Beach County Health Care District, Palm Beach State College, the Children’s Services Council, Palm Tran, Seacoast Utility Authority, the Solid Waste Authority and all five of Palm Beach County’s constitutional officers.
“The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council is encouraged by the leadership demonstrated at this week’s meetings by City Council Member Constance Scott and Deputy Mayor Susan Haynie,” said Hoch. “We hope that a majority of the City Council will follow their lead and we look forward to the City of Boca Raton implementing pro-family policies equalizing the benefits offered to all city employees and their families.”
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