Academic

Ohio Paid Sick Leave Initiative Ignores LGBT Families

By Nancy Polikoff

I never thought I’d see the day when I would question an effort to secure paid sick leave. But I recently learned that the campaign for paid sick leave in Ohio has proposed an initiative that will allow workers to care for sick loved ones only if they are a parent, spouse, or child. Ohio–like most states–bans same-sex marriage, so this leaves out all same-sex couples, let alone other unmarried couples and those who care for loved ones outside the narrow categories in this initiative.

Before you think I have some utopian vision of what a paid sick leave policy can be, consider this: Federal government employees can use their sick leave to care for those with whom they have a “close association” that is the “equivalent of a family relationship.” And Senator Kennedy’s proposed Healthy Families Act contains identical language. A bill pending in Illinois doesn’t go that far, but it covers anyone who has been a member of the employee’s household for at least six months. There are lots of ways to write a law that covers family members, including but not limited to same-sex partners, without running afoul of Ohio’s constitutional amendment.

For more of my analysis of this, please read my blog entry today.

–Nancy Polikoff

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on July 09, 2008 (boomark / email).