Councilman: Same-sex life partner benefits bill has nothing to do with mayoral bid
City Councilman Jim Kenney plans to introduce a bill Thursday that will offer a tax credit to businesses that provide benefits to life partners of employees.
Councilman: Same-sex life partner benefits bill has nothing to do with mayoral bid
City Councilman Jim Kenney says he wants to help make Philadelphia an attractive place for all to live regardless of marital status, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
He plans to introduce a bill Thursday that will offer a tax credit to businesses that provide benefits to life partners of employees. The bill also extends various city benefits to life partners of city employees including pension retirement and survivor benefits, child notification, hospital visitation and health-related decision making rights and more.
Kenney, who said he has supported the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community for decades, waved off critics by noting the bill has nothing to do with a potential 2015 mayoral bid.
“I’ve been supporting LGBT rights for over 20 years in here. And as a straight, white, Catholic, Irish male that’s a harder lift than it is for anybody else. It’s the right thing to do,” Kenney said. “This is not special rights its equal rights. People who are domestic partners who share the same house together, people who are committed partners, they’re denied many of the rights folks get as a result of being married and my goal is to make Philadelphia such an attractive place for all types of people to come and live.”
The bill does not require businesses to provide benefits to life partners, but incentivizes them to do so, Kenney said.
“It’s good business to create a good working environment for your employees, regardless of their status,” he said.
Kenney said he did not know how much the tax credit would cost the city or how many employees and businesses would benefit from his bill. Kenney expects that a hearing on the bill would be scheduled for sometime in January where the Nutter administration would provide testimony on the measure.
Comments (17)
The City is already near bankrupcy. the City pension is more than 50% under funded, and Kenney wants to offer the most expensive employee benefits possible to homosexual couples or couples who ordinarily would be considered single by all intents and puropses jsut because. Councilman Kenney is so braindead it is pathetic. The City can barely afford the employee costs it already has commitments to make and he want's add more. What's next invite all the illegal aliens from around the globe and have them get on the City of Philadelphia's dole? Kenney is so stupid he should be recalled. Councilman Kenney keep your gay agenda to yourself and don't try to put it on the rest of us.— Speak-truth-2-power- Hey, here's a tip for you: People who don't know that "want's" is not a word (or, rather, that "want" cannot be possessive), and who display a deplorable lack of knowledge with regard to basic punctuation and capitalization should most defintiely not be referring to other people as "stupid". — wb2nd
- And why do you care? — jonline
- Actually, I think his next idea is a big raise for firefighters. I asked him where he planned to get the money from but got no response.— not_in_philly_anymore
- Another democrat spending other peoples money.— jerryk2b
- oh please not Mayor Kenney— Northeaster
- Once again, income taxes being manipulated for non-revenue purposes.— Falls Ed
- He the wrong color.— delham45
- Of course Kenny has no idea ''How much the tax credit would cost the City''.He really does not care since it will be paid for by the tax payers,regardless of their political affiliation.— GREEKPICNIC
- a tax credit is not the way to do it. we should just make a rule that mandates all health insurance must provide benefits for the partners of same sex couples. It is past time . there is absolutely no sane objective reason to treat homosexual couples differently than heterosexual.— Ryan
- What about the rest of us? Mayoral politics.— Paul Deon
- Not part of his mayoral run. Just part of his lifes mission to bankrupt the city.
When will people learn no Philly pol should not be able to promise pension sweeteners without paying for them. This idiot proudly claims he doesn't even know what they will cost.— PhillyNetTaxPayer - So instead of just equal rights now the LGBT community wants extra rights.
I encourage every business in the city to leave the city. Let the Demopukes and the union scum have it. Detroit Part 2 for all I care.— mephisto
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Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
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David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
Follow Dave on Twitter.
Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
Follow Jan on Twitter
Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
Follow Sean on Twitter
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