Equality at UAB under fire...for real now

November 11, 3:38 PMBirmingham Gay Community ExaminerJoe Openshaw

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Alabama state representative DuWayne Bridges has now pre-filed a bill that would prevent a public college or university from offering domestic partner benefits.  This is in direct response to the University of Alabama at Birmingham's health insurance benefits plan, which this year began offering benefits to domestic partners and children of employees, first reported here on September 25, 2009.

Rep. DuWayne Bridges, R-Valley, said Tuesday that taxes should not be appropriated to public universities that offer same-sex partner benefits.

He argues that this is a "social experiment" and that taxpayer money should not be used to fund it.

Let me shoot that argument down right here with an example.  If there are 10 employees, and 2 are gay, and they are all paying taxes as they should, the gay employees, paying their fair share, would be paying in at the same rate, so about 20% of the tax revenue.  If those two employees were partnered (not to each other) and all the heteros were married, then let the 80% of taxes paid by heteros go to fund their benefits, and let the 20% of taxes paid by the gay employees go to fund their benefits.  Otherwise, if the gays cannot get get partner benefits, exclude them from being taxed.

UAB, which has a world-renowned hospital, needs to offer domestic partner benefits to attract and retain talent, (Dale) Turnbough,  said. The decision is a strategy to create a positive, supportive and diverse work environment, she said.

Turnbrough is the UAB spokewoman.

“We believe this change will help us remain competitive from an employee recruiting standpoint,” she said. “Until we made it, we were not able to offer the families of potential faculty, staff and researchers access to the same sorts of benefits packages comparable to those of our top (National Institute of Health)-funded medical school peer group, which includes Vanderbilt, Duke, Johns Hopkins and others.”

Bridges and those like him want to reduce UAB to a second rate university, and prevent the University of Alabama and Auburn University from becoming first class, and those who believe in quality higher education and want a top research facility will oppose such legislation.

Governor Bob Riley supports Bridges 100%, according to Riley spokesperson Todd Stacy.

Here is a video (posted on this site before) that explains the need for such benefits.