Columbia [Missouri] City Council members unanimously voted on Monday night to establish a domestic partner registry.
The registry allows qualifying same-sex couples to register with the City of Columbia to get benefits and discounts at certain locations.
The Columbia city ordinance establishing a domestic partnership registry mimics similar registries in St. Louis and Kansas City. Same-sex couples are the main users of similar registries across the United States-but you don’t have to be gay or a lesbian to register.
Qualifications are; couples must live together for at least six months while sharing their property, be at least 18-years-old and mentally competent to form a contract.
Couples cannot be related by blood and cannot be married to any other person. Columbia couples can buy their domestic partnership status at the Boone County Health Department headquarters for $25, but benefits are limited.
Community Services Manager Steve Hollis said, “The only tangible benefit is the ordinance contains language that allows folks to access city services such as golf or the arc at the family rate, if they are in the domestic partnership registry. So really, that’s the only tangible benefit. Other than that, it’s rather symbolic actually.”
Many same-sex couples use a domestic partner registry as a symbol to publicly state their commitment to each other.
Columbia’s new registry does not force employers to treat domestic partnerships the same way they would treat marriages when offering benefits. The city of Columbia, Boone Hospital Center and Office Depot are just several employers in Columbia that already offer benefits to domestic partnerships.
Only one couple applied for Columbia’s new domestic partner registry on the first day of registration.
Hollis predicts more couples will sign up as word spreads of the new registry.
Columbia’s new registry does not force employers to treat domestic partnerships the same way they would treat marriages when offering benefits. The city of Columbia, Boone Hospital Center and Office Depot are just several employers in Columbia that already offer benefits to domestic partnerships.
