A few weeks ago,  LGBT employees in positions with AZ state government and AZ Universities were given their employee benefits back by the ruling of Judge John Sedgewick.  This ruling was the result of a case brought to the courts on behalf of 10 same gender couples who were employed by the state, but whose employer benefits were taken away by Jan Brewer and the state Legislature. 

Judge Sedgewick stated ‘because employees involved in same-sex partnerships do not have the same right to marry as their heterosexual counterparts, Section O has the effect of completely barring lesbians and gays from receiving family benefits.”  He continued to say, “Consequently, the spousal limitation in Section O burdens state employees with same-sex domestic partners more than state employees with opposite-sex domestic partners.”

In 2008 during Janet Napolitano’s term, domestic partnership definitions finally afforded LGBT couples rights to the same benefits as their fellow employees who were heterosexual. Benefits are just another form of compensation. To deny a gay or lesbian employee these benefits amounts to less compensation for the same job done by his or her co-worker.

When the voters of AZ passed a constitutional amendment to define marriage between a man and a woman, and Brewer subsequently set policy that only married couples could receive benefits, it was painfully clear that LGBT employees were being treated unfairly.

Well I don’t know about you but to me this smacks of discrimination. Reminds me of the Ally Bank commercials.  Their tag line is “even kids know when it’s wrong to treat some customer’s differently than others”. The sad thing is these state reps are not kids. Any good representative should represent all of their constituents, gay or straight. And by going forward with trying to take away benefits, which equal additional compensation, they are treating their LGBT constituents unfairly.

Now Brewer and the Legislature are appealing the Judge’s ruling on the premise that the Legislature has the ultimate authority to make state employee benefits.

Please write your state reps and urge them to be fair to all of their employees.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 14th, 2010 at 10:15 am and is filed under Life. Tags for this post: AZ state legislature, AZ Universities, employee benefits, GLBT employees, Jan Brewer, Janet Napolitano, John Sedgewick. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.