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Many people really think LGBT relationships are not discriminated against. Again and again, organizers have found that the most effective way to change the minds of moderates who aren't enthusiastic about domestic partnership policies is to show them that discrimination is a real problem.
Stories may be the most important kind of evidence of the need for domestic partnership policies. They work with all three types of domestic partnership policies, and with all three types of arguments for domestic partnership. You want to find stories about the often tragic, often cruel consequences of not recognizing nonmarital relationships. If you are proposing a benefits or recognition policy, the best stories are those about situations which the policy would directly cover.
There is a possible exception to that general guideline. If you are proposing a policy to add domestic partners to a medical plan, testimony about persons with serious diseases who don't get covered are definitely a mixed bag. People often like to use this kind of testimony on the theory that the hardships a serious illness without insurance brings are likely to create sympathy. They are; they are also likely to remind listeners that illness can be very expensive, and that adding domestic partners will cost even if they are not more expensive to cover then spouses. Moreover, if the uncovered illness in your story is, say, like HIV, it may reinforce the incorrect notion that domestic partners are more expensive to cover. You'll probably need to confront the second ideas with expert evidence. But you may want to avoid anything that plays into either of these notions.
With health plans, you may be better off sticking to stories which emphasize the economic unfairness to the employee of not covering nonmarital partners.
"Free ride" pension plans are just unlikely to generate sympathetic stories at all.
Particularly with "pure" registration systems, virtually any story of nonrecognition can be helpful. Limited though the acknowledgment of a registration system is, in most situations, it is likely to make some difference.
Stories about the "indirect" impact of domestic partnership--about social recognition of nonmarital relationships or about the use of domestic partnership to prove the nature of a relationship rather than to establish rights--can also be used to support recognition systems and benefit plans. A declaration in an insurance form that two people are domestic partners may not be as strong as a government filing, but it is not insignificant.
Use a few positive recognition stories if you can. These can show how your policy would solve some of the problems detailed in your stories. Some institution in your area may have voluntarily recognized domestic partners. If you can't find one, get in touch with an institution elsewhere which has and gather the stories or information you need. One or two mundane stories can help as well. Tragedy generates empathy, but sometimes you can make people understand with illustrations about every day recognition of relationships that they experience in their own lives.
Along with stories which show why recognition is important to individuals, you should usually present evidence that recognition is important to a large number of people. Call cities that have pure registration systems and ask if they can tell you how many people have signed. Several cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, have done studies on alternative families as well. There is some academic writing on nonmarital couples. You can try digging it out of libraries yourself, ask one of your experts to help you, or, if they can't, try to recruit a new academic expert on family matters.
If you are proposing a plan that will cost little or nothing, you might think it will be easy to convince others about it. Don't count on that.
If you are proposing a registration system with a filing fee, get someone from the office which will do the filing or the city's finance office to explain that the fee will cover the cost (make sure it will when you write the policy). If you are proposing a policy which extends family memberships or discounts, get an economist or marketing expert to explain that those plans are thought to make money by bringing in additional business.
If you are proposing something which has real cost, like a health or free ride pension plan, you are apt to need three kinds of evidence. An economist or a management specialist can be very helpful in getting all three and in evaluating any counterevidence. Try a local university as a source.
First, you'll want evidence of the value of the benefit to support your equal pay for equal work argument. You may be able to get that from the employer's human resources department. There are general estimates on the value of various fringe benefits in academic studies of the work place. You can get very general information about the value of fringe benefits from management texts, etc. One secondary confirmation of the value and importance of fringe benefits is the prominent role they play in labor negotiations.
Second, you'll need evidence that domestic partners are not more expensive to cover than spouses. The best evidence here are the experiences of employers who have added domestic partners to their plans. You can simply call a few, or have your expert advisors do that. Plan administrators are usually more than willing to talk.
Several employment consulting groups have done studies of domestic partnership. You should be able to get details from one of the national LGBT civil rights organizations.
Be wary of consultants' studies, especially studies done for the institution on which you are working. They tend to be based on very pessimistic assumptions about how the system will work. To analyze and respond to studies, you'll need the help of your economics expert.
Some health plans try to exact special "surcharges" for covering domestic partners. The argument for the surcharge is that since the insurer doesn't have enough "history" with domestic partners, it needs a hedge against the possibility they will be more expensive to cover. Now that there is "history" with a number of significant domestic partnership plans, surcharges are unjustifiable. They've been dropped from most plans which originally accepted them and several employers have negotiated plans without them. Gather details both from plans which dropped them and plans which avoided them to fight any surcharge proposal.
Finally, you'll probably need testimony estimating the real cost of adding domestic partners; that is, the increase which comes simply from putting more people on the plan. This testimony is likely to be critical if the institution is thinking about limiting costs by restricting the plan to LGBT domestic partners. Again, the best information comes from existing plans, both those which include heterosexual domestic partners and those which don't.
>> Next: 5. Dealing with Arguments Against
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