National
McDermott introduces pro-gay tax equity bill
Legislation would eliminate tax on employer-provided coverage
The sponsor of legislation that would ensure tax equity for same-sex couples receiving employer-provided health benefits envisions upcoming tax reform legislation as a potential vehicle for passage.
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), the sponsor of the Tax Parity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, said in an interview with the Washington Blade that he sees an opportunity to move his legislation forward when Congress takes up planned legislation for tax reform.
“It will be easy to put it in some tax bill along the way,” McDermott said. “It won’t be a standalone bill.”
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, has said he wants to address tax reform during this Congress and has held hearings on the issue, although the time for when the panel will take up the larger bill is still unknown.
A McDermott staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said his boss could amend the larger tax reform legislation with the Tax Parity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act when it comes before the committee, but said it “depends on the process the Republicans take.”
McDermott’s legislation rectifies an inequity faced by LGBT couples under current law, which exempts employer-provided health coverage for opposite-sex spouses from an employee’s gross income, but makes domestic partner benefits and coverage for same-sex spouses subject to taxation.
Consequently, employees seeking to cover their same-sex partners or spouses pay more income and payroll tax than a straight employee with an opposite-sex spouse.
This inequity also burdens employers who want to extend their health benefits to the partners of their gay employees. Companies that offer such benefits have the administrative burden of calculating taxes separately and have to pay additional payroll taxes.
McDermott said he introduced the legislation, which has been languishing in Congress since 2001, as a “matter of basic fairness” for same-sex couples who are receiving employer-provided health benefits.
“If there is a couple who are in some kind of union, recognized in one way or another, they have to pay taxes on it,” McDermott said. “That’s not fair. Why should a gay couple, or any kind of couples that are living together, using one health insurance plan have to pay taxes whereas if you’re married and not a same-sex couple, you don’t have to pay taxes.”
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that the legislation will eliminate an additional barrier that same-sex couples face in securing health insurance coverage.
“This legislation would remove that added tax burden, which can be as much as $2,200 per year, as well as the penalty imposed on fair-minded employers who provide equal benefits to their LGBT employees,” Solmonese said.
In the last Congress, the legislation was included as a provision in a House version of health care reform legislation. However, the language never made it as part of the final bill because the Senate version of health care reform was the bill that made its way to President Obama’s desk.
Despite the failure last week, McDermott said the prospects of passing tax reform legislation this Congress are even greater than last year — even with Republicans in control of the House — because of the plan for Congress to address tax reform legislation by the end of next year.
“We’ve got some Republican sponsors this time,” McDermott said. “As a matter of fact, there are a lot more Republicans who have heard from people in their district who are saying, ‘Just change the tax code and make it easier for us.'”
As of this week, McDermott’s legislation has three co-sponsors: Reps. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) , Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.). In the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is set to introduce companion legislation either this week or the next. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will be an original co-sponsor.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, praised the Republican co-sponsors for joining on in early support of the legislation.
“We need common sense, pro-growth policies to give businesses and entrepreneurs renewed confidence in our economy and to remove Washington as the roadblock to job creation,” Cooper said. “Under current policy, the federal tax code is punishing the business community for providing their gay and lesbian employees with benefits. Congress can help private sector growth by eliminating the punitive domestic partner tax.”
An estimated 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies offer health insurance benefits to the same-sex partners of the employees. On May 31, 77 major American businesses — including Alaska Airlines, Microsoft and Boeing — sent a letter to McDermott in support of the legislation.
“Companies like ours in increasing numbers have made the business decision to provide health benefits to such beneficiaries, such as the domestic partners, adult children, certain grandchildren, etc. of our employees,” the letter states. “This coverage and coverage of non-spouse, non-dependent beneficiaries helps corporations attract and retain qualified employees and provides employees with health security on an equitable basis.”
The legislation falls under the jurisdiction of the Republican-controlled House Ways & Means Committee, which most observers expect to be unfriendly to pro-LGBT legislation. Camp’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the bill.
However, one of the signers of the legislation is the Dow Chemical Co., which is headquartered in Midland, Mich., and in Camp’s district. Supporters of the legislation are hoping Dow’s endorsement will prompt Camp to support it.
McDermott said he hasn’t had discussions with Camp about his bill yet, but plans to do so when the congressional recess ends at the start of next week.
The administration has also yet to voice support one way or the other for the legislation. Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, told the Blade the administration hasn’t yet reviewed the measure.
“While we have not reviewed this specific legislation, the president generally supports efforts to give parity and equal protection to same-sex couples,” Inouye said.
McDermott said he doesn’t see any interim action that President Obama could take to address the situation and said passing legislation is the only to end the tax inequity faced by LGBT couples.
“I think it’s going to require a law change,” McDermott said. “If you keep after something that’s right, then ultimately the stars line up and it passes. That’s what’s going to happen here.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
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Delaware considers enshrining same-sex marriage into state Constitution
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PHOTOS: Equality Prince William Pride
Chilean lawmakers back report that calls for suspension of program for trans children
Ashley Biden to speak at Blade’s Summer Kickoff Party in Rehoboth Beach
Pete Buttigieg, eyeing a presidential run, holds Iowa town hall
Calendar: May 16-22
Documentary about Blade reporter to premiere this month
