NYC Mayor Calls for Pension Plan Recognition of Same-Sex Partners

November 18, 2004

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday called for the city's pension funds to treat municipal workers in same-sex marriages in the same way as those in traditional marriages.

The mayor directed his appointees on the city's five pension fund boards to support the call. Bloomberg does not have the majority of appointments on the boards but LGBT activists in New York say they are hopeful the change will be approved.

We applaud the mayor for treating LGBT families the same as all other families for the purposes of the pension fund, Empire State pride Agenda executive director Alan van Capelle said.

Same-sex couples who are married deserve to be treated the same as all other families.

Bloomberg said he based his decision on a legal opinion by the city Law Department.

If approved, same sex couples who are legally married or involved in a civil union with a city employee, would receive pension benefits - including accidental death benefits.

Those eligible would include people who were married in Massachusetts, Europe, or Canada, and those in civil unions performed in Vermont.

It is not known how many people would be affected. The pension plans include all city sanitation workers and roads crews to police and teachers.

While it remains unclear if the pension plan administrators will follow Bloomberg's call, they have been actively involved in supporting LGBT issues in the past.

The plan, one of the largest in the nation with huge numbers of voting shares in Fortune 500 companies, has helped force more than a dozen corporations to adopt policies that specifically bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Last month the New York State pension plan said it would recognize same-sex marriages.

Van Capelle said the mayor needs to go one step further.

We are urging the mayor to take the same steps as five other municipalities have taken in New York State and provide same-sex couples who are legally married with every right and responsibility where marital status is a factor, van Capelle said.

Although same-sex marriage is not available in New York State, last March Attorney General Eliot Spitzer citing the state's comity law said that marriages of same-sex couples performed elsewhere are completely valid in New York State and must be treated as such.

The municipalities of Nyack, Ithaca, Buffalo, Brighton and Rochester followed suit by fully recognized legal out-of-state same-sex marriages, giving them the same rights as all other marriages within their local jurisdictions. In Rochester, for example, surviving spouses of veterans, including same-sex spouses, are entitled to certain types of city licenses and property tax exemptions.

The mayor's announcement came a week after he was ordered by a court to implement a law forcing contractors that do more than $100,000 of business each year with NYC to offer benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian workers equal to those the companies give heterosexually married couples.

The Equal Benefits Law was passed by Council, vetoed by Bloomberg and then overridden by council. The mayor then took it to court arguing that city money should not be used to advance social issues.