Sue Kerr continues her coverage on the situation with Allegheny County ceasing to offer domestic partnership benefits. Her recent post is an excellent read.

I received some feedback via email from an occasional reader who has some history with the Pitt domestic partnership offerings that I appreciated receiving. I don’t know about the City of Pittsburgh or the Allegheny County offerings, but in the case of the University of Pittsburgh, the domestic partnership status was available to both opposite sex couples as well as same-sex couples. In the case of Pitt, it therefore offers a completely separate coverage option. Offering employees more options is a positive step towards happier employees. If this type of status is of value to employees, there is no reason to not offer it, right?

If the County and/or the City only offered DP benefits to same-sex couples, they may be in a different situation. I would expect that in these local governmental situations, the idea is on cost cutting plain and simple, and government is often stupid in the way it does things.

I also wonder, but have nothing to support this idea- that the County and City may have political agendas as well. If every effort is put forward to get as many couples married as possible it helps the movement overall.  Am I too jaded to think there is a pure political agenda at work here?

I’m also disappointed that no one seems to want to dig into looking at the role the ACA can play today. When domestic partnership benefits were first devised, the only way to get affordable coverage was through an employer offered plan. But that is no longer the case. Those who do not seek marriage have the ACA as an avenue for affordable coverage.

There are real and valid reasons why couples don’t get married until they are ready, and it is unfortunate that the turn of events places some couples into a difficult situation. In an ideal world, we would all still be celebrating the victory of marriage equality but instead we caught up in the challenges created by an otherwise positive step forward.