FLORIDA: Orange County Commission Approves Domestic Partners Benefits

Orange County, Florida commissioners have unanimously approved extending benefits to the partners of gay county employees. Via Watermark:

In their pre-vote comments, many commissioners took the time to recognize Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, who led the effort in 2008 to extend benefits to same sex domestic partners of city employees, and former Orange County Commissioner Linda Stewart, who crusaded on behalf of same sex partners of county employees. Sheehan and Stewart were the first to speak in favor of the benefits. “It’s not the same as marriage, but it makes things a little more fair,” Sheehan said.

It's nice to be able to report good news from home.

RELATED: In November, Orange County instituted broad LGBT protections in public accommodations, housing, and employment.

Facebook Adds Civil Unions & Domestic Partnerships To Relationship Status

Facebook users in America, Canada, Australia, Britain and several other countries now have two more options when announcing their relationship status: civil unions and domestic partnerships.

The changes were made in consultation with Facebook's Network of Support, a group that includes LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, and the Human Rights Campaign. "As LGBT people face a patchwork of relationship recognition laws, this gives people more tools to adequately describe their relationship," said Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. "Facebook has been a company that has tried to be inclusive of the LGBT community and this just one sign of it."

Arizona Moves To Ban Gay Partner Benefits

Last year Arizona's legislature voted to stop offering insurance to the gay partners of state employees. Purely to save money, don't you know. That move was blocked by a judge thanks to a lawsuit from Lambda Legal, but now the state has filed a federal appeal of his ruling.

Assistant Attorney General Charles Grube contends U.S. District Judge John Sedwick was wrong to issue an injunction last year barring the state from altering its benefits package. That ruling requires Arizona to keep funding the coverage until there is a final ruling, which could take years. Grube said that before issuing an injunction, Sedwick was required to consider not only the claims of harm to the people losing benefits, but the harm to the state by being required to maintain them. But Grube said Sedwick was "explicitly dismissive" of evidence presented by the state about the cost burden on taxpayers of continuing to provide coverage.

Only about 800 state employees had signed up for the benefit.

(Tipped by JMG reader Homer)