King County could revise benefits policy

By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Metropolitan King County Councilmen Bob Ferguson and David Irons yesterday proposed amendments to the Equal Benefits Ordinance that are intended to let faith-based groups accept county dollars without compromising their beliefs.

Catholic Community Services had warned it might decline to renew its contracts with the county rather than adopt an employee-benefit policy that violates church teachings.

The ordinance, passed by the County Council last December, gave contractors the choice of providing no benefits to spouses or giving equal benefits to spouses and domestic partners.

Sister Sharon Park, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, said that was problematic because it put Catholic Community Services in the position of either cutting off spouses' health benefits or condoning homosexual relationships and other sexual relationships outside marriage. "We will maintain our beliefs," Park said. "If it meant that we could not sign a contract because of that, we would not sign a contract."

The amendments proposed by Ferguson, a Democrat, and Irons, a Republican, would create a new, and broader, classification of people who could receive benefits: "legally domiciled members of household."

Such a household member could be either an employee's dependent adult relative or an unmarried housemate who intends to continue living with the employee and who shares basic living expenses. Contractors would have the option of providing the same benefits to a spouse as to a "domiciled member of household."

Park said she had not seen the amendments introduced by Ferguson and Irons, which are modeled after ordinances in San Francisco and Seattle. But she said the San Francisco approach is acceptable to the Catholic Church, in part, because it extends health care more broadly. Two, one-year contracts between King County and Catholic Community Services for housing the homeless were to start July 1, but have not been signed by the church group and likely will not be signed unless the law is changed, Park said.

Catholic Community Services and the affiliated Archdiocesan Housing Authority receive more than $240,000 from King County for projects for the homeless and for senior citizens.

Ferguson said, "These folks are doing great work for King County, and we need to find a way to make this work. This seemed like a win-win for everybody."

Ryan Bayne, County Executive Ron Sims' liaison to the County Council, said the Catholic Church initially asked for a "conscience clause" that would exempt it from the Equal Benefits Ordinance. Bayne said Sims opposed an exemption for faith-based groups but supports the Ferguson-Irons amendments because they don't compromise the concept of offering domestic partners the same benefits as spouses.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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