Distinguished Service Award to the Honorable Phil Mendelson
Presented by GLAA President Christopher Neff
GLAA 35th Anniversary ReceptionWashington Plaza Hotel
Thursday, April 20, 2006
I am holding an updated summary of the legal rights and responsibilities of registered domestic partners in Washington, D.C. With the passage of the Domestic Partnership Equality Act of 2005, which took effect earlier this month after completion of the congressional review period, the District of Columbia becomes one of the top five states in legal protections for same-sex couples. The principal person responsible for this is the man who wrote the law and steered it to unanimous passage, Councilmember Phil Mendelson.
Phil has been active with District issues since 1975 when he joined the McLean Gardens Residents Association in the fight to save that 43-acre housing complex from destruction. He ran for a seat on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in 1979 and continued to serve as an ANC Commissioner until he was elected as an At-Large member of the D.C. Council in 1998. He has been a strong ally of the city’s GLBT community. He currently chairs the Committee on the Judiciary, which gives him jurisdiction over our public safety agencies as well as the laws pertaining to marriage and domestic partnership.
Given his consistent strong support for consumer and civil liberties issues, it was no surprise that he was receptive when we approached him to request the next incremental additions to domestic partnership rights. What did surprise us a bit was how ambitious he was. We thought he would choose one area on our high-priority list, such as power of attorney, and write a bill focusing on that. Instead, he came back with everything on our high-priority list and most of the items on our medium-priority list. He said he was not comfortable just focusing on rights, and that he wanted to add the responsibilities as well. We said absolutely. The resulting bill is a collective triumph, an acceleration of the incremental progress we have worked on these past years.
Among the things the new law provides for are:
- Immunity from testimony;
- Power of Attorney;
- The equivalent of pre-marital agreements;
- Distribution of property in the event of a breakup;
- Standing to sue for negligence causing death;
- Rights of surviving partners and children; and
- Rules for dying intestate and other issues of inheritance.
A few people have complained about the new responsibilities, and one person even insisted that registered partners should be able to opt out of the new provisions. But Phil agreed with GLAA that the proper goal is not a cheap symbolic gesture, but real legal equality for our families.
To be sure, this law still leaves gay couples short of full equality. For one thing, the District has no power to give us the 1,138 rights and responsibilities of marriage under federal law. But the fact that political realities, chief among them being the District’s special relationship with Congress, prevent us from enacting full marriage for the time being, does not stop us from making real progress for real families. Phil understood this, agreed with our vision, and took advantage of his role as Judiciary chair to craft the most ambitious piece of gay rights legislation in this city in over a decade, and shepherd it through to passage.
Phil also worked with us to down play the bill and did not grandstand as so many politicians would, so that it moved forward without making itself a right-wing target.
Phil has always been a staunch ally on gay rights and HIV/AIDS issues, but with this historic legislative achievement, he has become a champion. It is my honor as president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance to present our Distinguished Service Award to Councilmember Phil Mendelson.
