Jan 11, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

A new bill filed Tuesday with the Virginia Legislature, if passed, would give gays and lesbians in same-sex relationships more authority in making decisions for each other in case of medical emergencies.

The bill is one of several on the docket this year — the session began Wednesday and runs through March 8 — that could affect gays in Virginia. Another would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing while another would allow local governments to offer health insurance benefits to same-sex couples.

Dyana Mason, executive director of Equality Virginia, a bipartisan gay activist group, said her organization is committed to working for passage of these bills this year.

“We work,” Mason said, “to keep our members and supporters across the state updated on the bills and encourage them to take action — whether it’s phoning their delegates or senators or sending e-mails.”

Equality Virginia is hosting a lobby day in Richmond Jan. 24 and will feature a transgender caucus for the first time.

“We are encouraging the transgender members and supporters of EV to join on lobby day,” Mason said. “We will be meeting with specific, targeted legislators to discuss issues of [importance] to the transgender community, some of these may overlap our legislative agenda, some may be unique to the transgender community.”

The legislation related to medical emergencies, sponsored in the House by Del. David Englin (D-Alexandria), would set up a registry in Virginia for living wills and advanced medical directives. These legal documents would express an individual’s wishes in advance regarding medical treatment in case the individual is incapacitated or otherwise unable to make decisions. Those in same-sex relationships could designate their partner as the person who would make medical decisions on their behalf.

The legislation, House Bill 805, would require the Department of Health to set up a registry that would be a secure database into which individuals could file their directives. A person would then provide a caregiver with access to this information in case obtaining the documents was necessary.

“An advanced medical directive sitting in a shoebox somewhere where no one knows where it is doesn’t protect your legal rights,” Englin said. “The whole point of these legal documents is to make it crystal clear who has the legal right to make medical decisions on your behalf.”

The registry would be particularly important to gays and lesbians because they don’t have the “natural legal protections that come in a marriage relationship,” Englin said.

He hopes a bipartisan coalition will form to support the registry bill similar to how legislators came together last year to pass the hospital visitation bill he introduced, which allows patients to designate any person, such as a same-sex partner, as next of kin for visitation purposes.

Englin said he expects the decision-making bill to go before the Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee this year. Sen. George Barker (D-Alexandria) has introduced another version of the legislation before the Senate.

Del. James Scott (D-Falls Church) is sponsoring legislation that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing. Virginia has no legal prohibition category for sexual orientation and a landlord can deny tenancy to gays or lesbians based on their sexual orientation.

“Housing discrimination is at least as important as [employment discrimination] I think,” he said. “No penalty, no prohibition — and therefore I think we need some protections.”

Mason said she expects H.B. 36 to go before the General Laws Committee.

Scott introduced this bill several years ago in the House, but the legislation did not make it out of committee.

“We need to keep on that problem because I think there is a serious problem that we’ve not addressed in law in Virginia,” he said.

David Lampo, vice president of Virginia Log Cabin Republicans, said members of his group might be split on the measure, with some appreciating the added protection against housing discrimination, but other, more libertarian-minded members thinking the bill could impinge on landlords’ rights to make their own decisions.

Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple is sponsoring the bill that would allow local governments to offer health insurance benefits to same-sex couples. The bill, S.B. 51, would allow any locality that self-funds an employee health insurance program to extend that coverage to a person agreed upon by the locality and the policyholder.

Janie Burton, legislative assistant for Whipple, said the legislation is necessary for Arlington County to offer health insurance coverage to its employees in same-sex relationships.

A law in Virginia known as the Dillon rule restricts the ability of local governments to pass some legislation independently, Burton said. The Dillon rule states ...