COLUMN: For Better or For Worse

From Dan Schorr's "Behind Enemy Lines," Fall '94 Our campus has joined the health care debate raging across the country, becoming involved in the quest to secure affordable benefits for those who deserve it. One of the perks received by many University employees is that their health care benefits are extended to their spouses. But what about those who are not married, who choose to rather live in sin with "domestic partners?" How should they fit into the University's health care system? In March of 1993, a Task Force on Benefits for Domestic Partners was charged by Faculty Senate leaders, the Provost, and the President "to consider the proposition that the University should provide domestic partners of Penn employees the same benefits provided to spouses of employees." The Task Force's recommendation, which was unanimously endorsed by the University Council and the Board of Trustees, urged the University to extend such benefits to "same-sex domestic partners of employees." Therefore, if you're a bisexual man and have a male domestic partner, then this policy is for you. However, if you then choose an alternative to your alternative lifestyle and cohabitate with a woman, your partner had better either have a large bank account or stay out of West Philadelphia after nightfall and take lots of vitamins. Discrimination? Maybe. Of course, there is a rationale behind the University's odd interest in the genitalia of its employees' lovers. While a man may legally marry a woman, according to the government he cannot join in an equally holy union with another man. Discrimination? Possibly. The prevailing logic argues that since homosexuals can't marry, the University should grant their partners benefits. And since heterosexuals can marry, the University need not be moved to action in their defense. Yet while heterosexuals can marry, the choice to simply "live together" has many significant moral, financial, and philosophical justifications -- such as, well, not wanting to get married. Any crusader for "lifestyle choices" will surely concur. Many point out that heterosexuals can engage in "common law" marriages, which the University's domestic partners agreement attempts to approximate. However, unlike the domestic partnership, such a marriage can only be dissolved by a legal divorce and therefore entails many important consequences that domestic partners will not have to face. Removed from many legal restrictions that common law marriages face, the responsibilities of having a same-sex roommate declared a "domestic partner" are relatively less rigorous. According to the University, a couple may demonstrate their union through such items as a joint bank account, a joint mortgage, and having "a committed relationship intended to be of indefinite duration." If the claim that common law marriages are equally binding as domestic partnerships is true, why demand that heterosexual employees face the complications of the former arrangement? Because, in fact, many more would be able to gain benefits under domestic partnerships, and that could become very costly. Therefore, University-recognized domestic partnerships, a very desirable and lucrative relationship, remain restricted to couples of the same sex. While I have absolutely no moral objection to homosexuality, the thought of personally engaging in homosexual acts is not appealing. Yet if I can save thousands of dollars on health care by french kissing a male roommate periodically and letting him cop a feel now and then, I might make an exception. I'm not the only one whose attitude would change once employed by the University. The guy in The Crying Game who was moved to throw up when he saw Jaye Davidson's penis would be ecstatic to learn about all the benefits he and his no-longer-female lover could possibly receive. Clearly, what the University wants to achieve is equality -- a worthy goal according to most moral people. Yet instead of homosexual cohabitating couples failing to receive the benefits of heterosexuals, they will now receive benefits that heterosexuals can not. This logic would imply that if the University felt that there was historical discrimination against certain groups in admissions policies, it should actually make it easier for members of such groups to gain admittance rather than striving for equality of standards. It seems strange, but is it very different from the new domestic partners benefits policy? There are currently two organizations that can provide equality: the state of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania. The state, it appears, can provide equality by allowing homosexual marriages. The University, it seems, can provide equality by allowing all domestic partners to receive benefits. Hoping that two wrongs make a right, the University feels that granting same-sex domestic partners benefits will counteract the state not allowing homosexual marriages. Do we have equality with the implementation of the new domestic benefits policy? Ask the two men who wish to marry and then ask the man and woman who are living together in the equivalent of a domestic partnership and they'll all give you the same answer. What's changed is who is now in the more fortunate position. And while that may satisfy some, that is not equality. Dan Schorr is a senior English major from Valley Stream, New York. Behind Enemy Lines will appear alternate Fridays.