Washington, D.C. is the latest area to legalize same-sex marriage and this has caused a problem for Catholic Diocese of Washington. They’ve threatened to quite doing humanitarian work in Washington, D.C. but I guess the backlash and the taxpayer subsidies are too much to pass up. The Catholic diocese of Washington has found a unique solution to their problem of offering benefits to legally recognized spouses – they won’t offer spousal benefits for anyone.
Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers — the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.
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Catholic Charities, which receives $22 million from the city for social service programs, protested in the run-up to the council’s December vote to allow same-sex marriage, saying that it might not be able to continue its contracts with the city, including operating homeless shelters and facilitating city-sponsored adoptions. Being forced to recognize same-sex marriage, church officials said, could make it impossible for the church to be a city contractor because Catholic teaching opposes such unions.
After the council voted to legalize gay marriage, Catholic Charities last month transferred its foster-care program — 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members — to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. First of all, it will create two classes of married people in the Washington Diocese – those that had a spouse enrolled in a health plan and newer employees/newly-married employees. Second, this will be a real hardship for people. Only 59% of employers nationwide offer health insurance to their employees, so a significant number of people will suffer – stay-at-home spouses not previously covered, newly unemployed spouses and new spouses without health insurance from their employer. Also, it’s possible it could hurt the recruitment of employees in the long run if people can not insure their spouses.