The following are excerpts from the Congressional Record of Sen. Wellstone's introduction of his bill. Note that neither the House nor Senate bills Is yet scheduled for a vote. This Is likely to be the beginning of a long process for Federal gay and lesbian employees In our drive to receive equal pay (since benefits have substantial value) for equal work.

Last October, Congressman Barney Frank broke new ground when he introduced HR2761, the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 1997. I am here today to break ground in the Senate by introducing the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 1998. This bill does not introduce new benefits; it simply extends existing benefits to a previously uncovered group of employees for very little cost.

This bill provides benefits for same-sex domestic partners of civilian, federal employees. Partners must be living together, in a committed, intimate relationship, and responsible for each other's welfare and financial obligations. It provides access to five categories of benefits in the same way that married spouses have access: participation in retirement programs, life insurance, health insurance, compensation for work injuries, and upon the death of a government employee, the domestic partner would be deemed a spouse for the purpose of receiving benefits.

This is a bill about justice, about fairness, about equity in the workplace. This bill is about saying to our gay and lesbian employees, "We value your contribution to the workplace, and to show you we value you, we're going to protect your families, like we protect the families of married employees, by providing them with benefits." It is about providing the opportunity for same-sex domestic partners to provide their partners — who previously have been denied—access to such benefits as health insurance.

For many people in this country, insurance benefits for their loved ones are automatic, they are expected, they are the norm. But benefits didn't start out that way. In fact, they are a relatively modern invention. Benefits in the form of compensation were created in the 1940's, essentially to increase compensation for some employees who were prohibited by law from getting pay increases. So instead of more pay, employers paid for certain products and services such as health insurance to take care of their employees and to make their businesses more attractive to potential employees. For gay men and lesbians, most of these benefits are completely inaccessible.

But where is it written in stone that only married spouses and their children deserve benefits? Yes, many employers have chosen to limit benefits to married spouses and their children, but more and more, governments, universities, and private businesses have been making a different choice. Business and organizations like the San Francisco 49ers, Reader's Digest, Starbucks, Coors, Ben and Jerry's, Kodak, Disney, the Union Theological Seminary, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers #18, Mattel, the Vermont Girl Scout Council, and more than 50 Fortune 500 companies have made the right choice to offer domestic partnership benefits. A more fair and equitable choice. A more humane choice. Today there are at least 42 cities and municipalities, 12 counties, 1 state, and 342 private sector for-profit and not-for profit businesses and unions which offer domestic partner benefits. The good news, though, is that we have more than 15 years worth of employers' experiences with providing these benefits.

By virtue of our vote on DOMA, we have said that same-sex couples cannot marry. But that doesn't mean that people in long-term, loving, and committed relationships don't deserve to have the opportunity to provide their loved ones with health insurance, survivor benefits, and other benefits. Domestic partnership legislation levels the playing field for same-sex partners who are not allowed to marry. This bill is aimed at correcting that inequity.

Not only are domestic partnership benefits fair and just, they cost very little. Employers have found that upon implementing domestic partnership benefits, one percent of all employees—at most—actually sign up their same-sex partners for benefits. And more often, it is less than one percent. Even taking the most liberal figures, there is no legitimate reason to argue that more than 1% of our almost 3 million federal civilian employees will enroll. And even though this is a relatively small number of employees—at most 30,000—let me tell you, these benefits are of critical importance to those who do.

My bill has stringent requirements for qualifying as domestic partners. Among other requirements, partners must sign an affidavit certifying that they share responsibility for a significant measure of each other's common welfare and financial obligations. And they must show documentation to prove it—such as copies of a mortgage or lease with both names on it, copies of bank statements showing joint checking or savings accounts, copies of durable powers of attorney for property and health, or copies of wills specifying each other as the major recipients of each other's financial assets.

The bottom line is that this bill creates serious consequences for fraud, establishes that every effort will be made to minimize fraud by those falsely claiming to be domestic partners and specifies that those caught will be seriously punished.

For the full text of Sen. Wellstone's discussion of his bill, including numerous testimonials from gay and lesbian federal employees about their hardships resulting from their lack of federal benefits, see the Congressional Record, February 12, 1998 at the Library of Congress Web Site, http://thomas.loc.gov.

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Pride Month Celebrations

People will be celebrating the memories and lives of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered people across the nation and world this June. It's Pride Month. Check out the activities of groups in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area on the Web — http://www.dcblackpride.org and http://www.capitalpride.org.

Federal GLOBE and individual GLOBE chapters are already making plans to step out and show their rainbow colors at parades and festivals. Here in the D.C. area Federal Globe will be at the D.C. Black Pride Festival on memorial weekend. We'll be marching in the 1998 Capital Pride Festival on June 7 and sharing info at a booth on Pennsylvania Ave. On June 14, we'll be enjoying the shade and tunes at the Montgomery County Pride Festival and introducing ourselves to the festival goers.

We'd love to hear what you are doing to celebrate Pride Month. If you have some information you'd like to share and/or you'd like to know more about Federal GLOBE's plans to celebrate Pride month, contact Eileen@fedglobe.org.

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