TAMPA, FL – Taking a cue from recent decisions by Orlando’s city government and the mayor of Orange County to establish domestic partner registries, Tampa may become the next Florida city to allow unmarried couples to register as domestic partners. Last week, Tampa City Councilwoman Yvonne Capin proposed a registry to include both straight and gay couples.
“We want to move into the 21st century,” Capin told reporters following last week’s council meeting. “This is the way people live today.” The councilwoman says that a domestic partner registry is in step with the values and needs of a modern society. “It’s not illegal to cohabitate,” Capin pointed out. “So we need to accommodate those people. And there are some people that can’t get married.”
Capin’s proposal is based upon the ordinance that took effect in January in Orlando. A similar plan is expected to be implemented across Orange County with the backing of Mayor Teresa Jacobs, who lent her support to such a measure last week after several months of public soul-searching on the issue.
Orlando’s domestic partner registry permits domestic partners to visit each other in the hospital, make health care decisions for one another, make funeral and burial arrangements for one another, be considered each other’s next of kin for the official purposes of police and other first responders, designate one another as caretaker in the event of incapacitation, and participate in school activities as parents of their shared children. “Nothing in this ordinance shall be construed as recognizing or treating a domestic partnership as a marriage,” the ordinance reads.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said he is in favor of creating a domestic partnership registry. “Giving folks who are unmarried but in a relationship the right to be there at a critical time for their partner is humane and absolutely defensible,” Buckhorn stated. Since 2005, Tampa has extended insurance benefits to the domestic partners of city employees. A similar measure was rejected by the rest of Hillsborough County in 2009. Capin’s proposal would call for people who register as domestic partners to receive a card which instructs first responders whom to call in case of an emergency. Domestic partnerships would be tracked by a database maintained by the city. Census data indicates that Tampa has over 9,000 unmarried-partner households. Less than 10 percent are same-sex couples.