Oh, the irony

‘Gay’ Group Slashes Homosexual Partner Benefits for Own Employees

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force calls them 'prohibitively expensive'

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A leading homosexual activist group has cut in half domestic partner benefits for its employees’ lovers.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is working to force corporations to adopt such benefits for its homosexual employees, reportedly said that the costs were "prohibitively expensive."

The homosexual newspaper Washington Blade reported that the Task Force slashed partner benefits in half, following a plea by its outgoing executive director, Lorri Jean, that the lovers' benefits were too expensive to maintain during a budget crunch.

One of the key arguments used by NGLTF and other homosexual pressure groups is that extension of marital benefits to homosexuals will not cost companies much money.

"Based on its own experience, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has been knowingly dishonest in public about the increased cost to employers of extending insurance coverage to individuals whose homosexual activity puts them at dramatically higher risk of domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse, life-threatening disease, and premature death," said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.

"In public, homosexual activists arrogantly and deceitfully dismiss concerns by other employers about the costs of so-called 'domestic partner' benefits," Glenn said. "But in private, when faced with the reality that practicing what they preach was threatening their own salaries and lobbying budget, these very same homosexual activists cut same-sex benefits for their own employees."

Glenn said NGLTF officials' "glaring hypocrisy" — revealed March 7 in a lead story by the Blade — will be extremely helpful in his and other pro-family groups' efforts to oppose the adoption of so-called "domestic partner" benefits by private employers and state and local governments.

"NGLTF Director Lorri Jean's admission that same-sex benefits for her own employees were 'prohibitively expensive' is now Exhibit A in the case we'll make to employers concerned about the rising cost of health care," he said.

NGLTF's private position on so-called "domestic partner" benefits was reported by The Blade, as follows:

Lorri Jean's first crisis at the Task Force surfaced several months after she took office (in 2001), sources said, when the NGLTF's unionized staff threatened to go public with a dispute over domestic partner benefits. During contract negotiations, Jean called for dropping a longstanding NGLTF policy of paying 100 percent of the health insurance premium for staff members' domestic partners, saying the benefit was prohibitively expensive. She had no objections to the existing policy of paying 100 percent of the health insurance premiums for employees themselves. But a 100 percent benefit plan for domestic partners could not be sustained, Jean said, at a time when the group had a $500,000 debt, including an outstanding loan of $300,000.

The Blade account continues:

Following a heated staff meeting, the [Task Force] staff's union members voted to back down from the 100 percent partner benefit demand, settling instead for a 50 percent payment plan for partners of staff members.

What the Task Force tells corporations

NGLTF's public position on so-called "domestic partner" benefits is published on the NGLTF website, as follows:

It Will Cost Too Much. The most common reason cited by companies who do not implement DP benefits is the perception that to do so would be cost prohibitive. ... [T]hese concerns are baseless. ...If a company cares about its employees and about the values of fairness and nondiscrimination, it should treat all employees equitably, no matter the price tag.