Nov 28, 2003  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

on the partners’ law, and the measure took effect in 2002.

But many local activists say the law, which seemed advanced for D.C. under the political realities of the early 1990s, now seems far too limited in scope. In addition to the largely symbolic provision allowing domestic partners to register their relationships with the city, the law offers only one “benefit” to the general public: hospitals and other health care facilities are required to provide visitation rights to domestic partners of persons admitted for care.

The law’s main provision — health insurance coverage to domestic partners of D.C. government employees — is available only if the partners pay 100 percent of the monthly premium payments.

GLAA and other local groups — such as the D.C. Coalition, which represents African American gays, and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club — have said they plan to push for individual bills to expand the city’s domestic partners law.

D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3) earlier this year pushed through a bill that gives domestic partners authority to make medical decisions for a partner who becomes incapacitated due to illness or injury. Evans last month introduced a separate bill that would waive a hefty recordation tax on a domestic partner whose name is added to the deed of a house previously owned by the other partner. Under current city law, the spouse of a married couple is exempt from that tax.

Unlike states such as Massachusetts, the District of Columbia does not have a constitution that could be invoked in a lawsuit to force the city to recognize same-sex marriage rights, including a marriage license. In 1995, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled against a gay male couple that sued the city for a marriage license.