Testimony Submitted by Carl Schmid
Capital Area Log Cabin Club
and the
Human Rights Campaign
to the
House District of Columbia Appropriations Subcommittee
Wednesday, June 24, 1998
Chairman Taylor and members of the Subcommittee, good afternoon. My name is Carl Schmid and I am appearing today on behalf of the Capital Area Log Cabin Club and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). As you may know, Log Cabin is an organization of gay Republicans, while HRC is the nation's largest gay and lesbian political organization with many members in the District of Columbia. We come before you again to express our concern over the inclusion of certain provisions that members of congress want to insert into the D.C. appropriation bill which would adversely impact our local community. Our message to you, as it was last year, is to please leave us alone. Specifically, today I would like to focus on a prohibition on the use of funds to implement the District's Health Care Benefits Expansion Act, commonly referred to as our Domestic Partnership law, attempts to prevent unmarried couples from adopting children, and a prohibition on the use of local D.C. funds to carry-out its AIDS prevention needle exchange program.
While we as D.C. citizens, like you, are concerned about how our government is being run and managed, and recognize the Congress has a constitutional role over the District of Columbia, we must ask how involved should the Congress be in dictating social policies in the lives of District citizens? Now that there is no longer a federal payment, Congress' involvement should be lessening, not increasing. I thought Republicans believe in less government and individual rights. So, why do we have to fight each year with the Congress over these issues? Aren't there enough bigger and more broader institutional and financial management issues to consider than to delve into such local policy issues? It seems that a small number of congressmen are trying to impose their thinking on the citizens of the District. We believe the citizens of the District of Columbia can best, and should, decide these local issues.
This year as you consider the D.C. Appropriation bill, we urge you to 1) oppose efforts to prevent the District from implementing its Domestic Partnership program; 2) oppose efforts to prohibit unmarried couples from adopting; and 3) oppose efforts to prevent the District from implementing its needle exchange program.
Domestic Partnership
In 1992, the District passed the Health Care Benefits Expansion Act, which became law after its Congressional review period. The law establishes a domestic partnership program, and allows District employees to purchase health insurance at their own cost for their domestic partner. The only benefits a domestic partner receives are visitation rights at nursing homes and hospitals, and depending on the employer, it may entitle them to other rights and benefits such as sick, parental, and bereavement leave. As you can see, this is an extremely limited program.Private employers around the country are establishing domestic partnership programs as are numerous cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Why then does Congress prevent the District from implementing its program while other cities are allowed to implement theirs?
Adoption
Another area where the Congress has attempted to interfere with local D.C. social issues is in adoption proceedings. Congress has traditionally stayed out of family law matters since family law, including adoption, has been handled at the state and local level. But, for the past three years one member of congress, at the urging of groups outside the District, has tried to attach a rider to the D.C. Appropriation bill that would prevent unmarried couples from adopting a child. Fortunately, fairer minds have prevailed and their attempts have failed, but it appears they still have not given up their fight.Adoptions do not happen over night, but only after careful planning, and a lengthy report is conducted by trained professionals that includes a home study, personal references, and financial and criminal record checks all in order to determine if the prospective parents are fit to adopt. The final decision rests with the family courts after they conclude the adoption would be in the best interest of the child. Currently, all 50 states and the District of Columbia allow single-parents to adopt, and to date, approximately one-half of the states, including D.C., allow second-parent adoptions. In these instances there is an adoption of a child by a second parent who accepts full legal responsibility for the financial care and raising of the child with the original parent thus, offering greater financial security and health and other benefits for the child. I hope you agree these are not issues of federal legislative concern, but decisions that are best left to local family courts to decide on a case by case basis.
Needle Exchange
The District of Columbia has one of the highest incidences of HIV infection in the country. This not only costs the loss of precious lives, but precious dollars. Intravenous drug use is the District's second highest mode of transmission, accounting for over 25% of all new AIDS cases. For women, where the rate of infection is growing faster than among men, it is the highest mode of transmission. Unfortunately, the trends do not look good, especially for the black community, where 97% of transmission through injection drug use occurs. Last year, the rate of infection for black women who contract the virus through injection drug use rose by 23 %, while for black men it rose by 12 %. These increases are occurring, I should note, while transmission via other modes and in other populations are decreasing because of education and prevention programs.While I am firmly against illegal drug use, I am also against the spread of HIV. The District of Columbia, through its locally funded needle-exchange program, is seeking to prevent both the spread of drug use and of AIDS. By blocking this local program Congress would be doing the opposite — increasing drug use and the spread of AIDS. There is no promotion of drug use with a needle exchange program, just the exchange of one used needle, that is already out there and most likely infected with the AIDS virus, with an uninfected sterile one. Scientific evidence shows that these programs reduce HIV transmission and do not encourage the use of illegal drugs. To participate in the D.C. needle exchange program, clients must be registered into the program and are given information on substance abuse treatment and rehabilitation. Without the program, the spread of AIDS would increase and these IV drug users would remain on the street without any contact with a professional health care provider.
The introduction of these local issues into the appropriations process significantly delays passage of the D.C. bill year after year. First, Congress sees fit to block our Domestic Partnership law, then, some members of congress try to become involved in family law matters by legislating who can or can not adopt, and now, these same members are going after the District's AIDS prevention program. When will all this local meddling stop? Do these members really care about the love two parents can provide for unwanted District children? Do they really care about the IV drug user on the street who can so easily be infected with HIV? Or, are these members merely picking these issues for quick political gain?
As you consider the D.C. Appropriation bill this year, we urge you to resist including these extraneous riders in the bill. Thank you for the opportunity to present our views today. We look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you.
