T he Spokane City Council is considering changing the definition of “family” to extend health benefits to “domestic partners” — homosexual and heterosexual — of city employees at Monday’s council meeting.

To recognize homosexual or heterosexual cohabiting couples as equivalent to legal marriage for the purposes of medical benefits is to raise the status of those unions and to give them social encouragement and affirmation. The stability and health of the traditional family is critical for the prosperity and welfare of the community. Encouragement of any alternative diminishes that stability.

On the other hand, the risk of physical and sexual abuse for children is 20 times more likely if biological parents are cohabiting and 33 times more likely if the male is not the natural father. (“The State of our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America,” The National Marriage Project of Rutgers University). Women in cohabiting unions are more than twice as likely as married women to be the victims of domestic violence. (“Why Marriages Succeed or Fail,” Dr. John Gottman, University of Washington)

While all institutions of society, especially the government, should be encouraging heterosexuals to keep sexual intimacy within the fence of legal marriage, every effort should be expended to discourage homosexual unions because of the emotional and physical devastation. For information on this aspect of the proposed ordinance, read the report “Getting the Facts: Same Sex Marriage” by Paul Cameron, Family Research Institute, www.familyresearchinst.org.

The 42 references in the pamphlet provide evidence that homosexual domestic partners contract more diseases, especially AIDS and hepatitis, than single gays with multiple sex partners. Further, domestic violence is second to AIDS as the largest health problem in the gay community today. Extending employment benefits, which only encourages these unions, is callous and uncaring.

Extending benefits to cohabiting partners will increase the health insurance rates for all employees, and ultimately the taxpayers, because it will widen the pool of beneficiaries with high-risk behaviors. Medical insurance costs were already up $5 million in 2002, stretching the general fund and costing jobs.

One more thing. After subsidizing same-sex partners of city employees, cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have later extended their policy to require any company doing business with the city to provide domestic partner benefits. This, of course, tramples on the right of self-determination for businesses. It also narrows the field of companies who can bid on city contracts, costing the taxpayers even more.

Changing the definition of “immediate family member” for the purposes of city employee benefits (i.e. retirement, medical, sick leave, etc.), to include anyone over 18 who sleeps with the employee for six months, should be a decision left to the citizens. If the electorate are generous enough to vote for additional benefits for city employees, I suggest the city take this issue out of the bedroom and offer the benefits to anyone at home who truly qualifies as a financial dependent on the employee’s IRS statement. This may or may not include relatives, regardless of their sexual preferences.

There is no human rights/racial/diversity issue at stake here. Couples have the freedom to live with anyone they want and there is even, unfortunately, evidence of society’s approval. Certainly, it is not an issue of unfairness just because our government decides not to subsidize and reward unhealthy sexually intimate partnerships, outside of legal marriage, with employee benefits.