Gays at Globe told to marry or lose benefits

By Jesse Noyes
Saturday, July 8, 2006 - Updated: 11:09 AM EST

Memo to Boston Globe gay and lesbian Guild employees: Get married or lose your domestic partner benefits.

Globe staffers have been told that health and dental benefits for gay employees' domestic partners are being discontinued. Gay couples who want to keep their benefits must marry by Jan. 1.

A memo sent to the Globe's Boston Newspaper Guild members, and obtained by the Herald, states that Massachusetts gay Guild employees can extend their benefits to their partners only if they marry.



"An employee who currently covers a same-sex domestic partner as a dependent will have to marry his or her partner by Jan. 1 for the employee benefits coverage to continue at the employee rates," the memo states.

The policy change at the Globe, which devotes extensive coverage to gay issues, opens a new can of worms in the Bay State as employers rethink their domestic partner benefits in the wake of the legalization of gay marriage in 2004.

Benefits for domestic partners were originally offered to gay employees because they couldn't legally marry, said Ilene Robinson Sunshine, a lawyer at Sullivan & Worcester.

Now that gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts companies that offer benefits to gay employees' partners risk hearing cries of discrimination from unmarried straight couples.

Such concerns played a role in the policy change at the Globe, said Steve Behenna, the newspaper's compensation and benefits director.

The Globe does not extend benefits to live-in partners of its heterosexual employees. Like many companies, it offered benefits to partners of gay employees because marriage was not an option for them. Now that gay marriage is an option in Massachusetts, Behenna said the paper could be more susceptible to claims of discrimination.Paul Holtzman, an attorney specializing in employment law at Krokidas & Bluestein, said you can expect more local companies to change their policies.

"There is a trend towards doing what the Globe did," he said. "A number of employers have taken the position that now that same-sex marriage is an option there is no longer a need to offer domestic partner benefits."

As companies drop domestic partner benefits, gays who work in Boston but live in another state could be left in the lurch since they can't legally marry, said Kevin Batt, an attorney who has handled gay marriage litigation.

Domestic partner benefits will continue for Globe employees who live in states where gay marriage is not recognized, Behenna said.