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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A judge on Friday upheld a Salt Lake City ordinance that extends health insurance benefits to "adult designees" of employees who live together but are not married.
In a five-page ruling, 3rd District Judge Stephen Roth said the plan does not violate state law, nor the Utah Constitution.
Roth said that although insurance plans traditionally have been limited to spouses and dependent children, "as a practical matter single employees may have relationships outside marriage, whether motivated by family feeling, emotional attachment or practical considerations, which draw on their resources to provide the necessities of life, including health care."
Earlier this year, Salt Lake's City Council, passed an ordinance allowing employees to name an "adult designee" for benefits if a financial dependency could be proved. The ordinance trumps an executive order signed last fall by Mayor Rocky Anderson, which granted benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of city employees.
It was Anderson's order that initially sparked a policy review by the courts.
City insurance provider, the Public Employees Health Program, asked for ruling to determine whether the benefits plan would violate state laws that ban gay marriage or any legal equivalent of marriage for same-sex couples. PEHP's petition was amended when the city ordinance was passed.
In his decision, Roth said the "adult designee" benefit as defined in the ordinance doesn't appear to create new legal status or rights that are substantially equivalent to a marriage between a man and a woman.
"The flexibility to extend the traditional concept of dependent as Salt Lake City proposes to do to meet the changing expectations of the marketplace and needs of employees can therefore be argued to be in the city's interest as an employer and public entity, as well as in the interests of covered employees," Roth wrote.
City policies were on hold pending Roth's ruling, but on Friday, City Attorney Ed Rutan said the program can now begin.
Although he still prefers his own plan to the city ordinance, Anderson said he's pleased with Roth's decision.
"The principle established by Judge Roth's opinion is an important one in that neither state statutes nor the state constitution prohibit the provision of equal benefits to people who are not the children or spouses of employees," Anderson said.
Jane Marquardt, board chairwoman for Equality Utah, a gay rights advocacy group also applauded the judge's decision, saying the matter is one of workplace equity and social justice.
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Information from: The Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
