Montana University System Gay Benefits Exclude Many Same-Sex Couples

The bottom line in all of this is that if they want to keep gay couples from getting these benefits, there’s always a way to do it by killing the process of signing up with red tape.

It’s the same way with firing or hiring someone. If a company wants to get rid of someone bad enough for a reason that isn’t legally possible, they will do it by another means. For example, if an employee is over weight, or gay, or black, you can’t fire them for that reason (in 36 states, they still can fire you for being gay). Rather, they will find some other “legitimate” reason for getting rid of you.

The same holds true for age. I’m sure that many people are denied jobs that they are capable of doing because they are “too old” - not quite what the company is looking for. Of course, you will never be told that. Instead, some other person (who just happens to be a young, preferably white, and single male) will get the job. You will never know that you were discriminated against, illegally.

In this case, the university system in Montana is asking gay couples to come up with all kinds of different criteria to somehow prove they are a couple. But it goes beyond that. You can tell they are making it as tough as possible for gay couples to enroll. Many, I’m sure, are just saying to hell with it. That’s a shame.

And what are gay couples to do? None of this applies to straight married couples because of the legal power that marriage brings to the table. Gay couples cannot get married. They really have nothing to fight with, other than the court system.

Last December the Montana Supreme Court ruled that the state must provide lesbian and gay employees of the University System with the option of purchasing health insurance and other employee benefits for their domestic partners. [...]

But, Casey Charles, a University of Montana English Professor says the requirements for entering the benefits plan are “onerous” and “unreasonable”.

To obtain health insurance benefits for a partner, the University System requires that couples prove, among other things, joint tenancy or joint home ownership for the last 12 months and that the partner is ineligible for other insurance. In addition couples must prove three of the following criteria: that they have joint ownership or lease of motor vehicle, have at least one joint liability, such as a loan or credit card, have mutually granted powers of attorney for finances or health care, designated each other as primary beneficiary in wills, life insurance policies, or retirement annuities, or meet the Internal Revenue Service definition of a dependent. (source)