Shadow Boxing

The White House and Congress use the District budget to score political points on domestic partnerships.

THE BUSH administration threatened to veto an otherwise dry piece of legislation that contains the fiscal 2008 appropriation for the District of Columbia because a prohibition against using federal funds for the District's domestic partner registry was stripped from the bill. On Thursday the House passed an amendment to put it back. Now, we don't mean to get overly technical here, but no federal funds were ever -- could ever -- be used to support domestic partnerships in the nation's capital. Instead, the battle over the provision is an example of what happens when the legislative and executive branches use the District to play to their respective bases.

First, the White House version: "The reason federal funds aren't used is because the current law forbids the District of Columbia from doing so," spokesman Scott Stanzel told us Wednesday. "That is why the administration believes the long-standing provision should be maintained, not removed." In fact, because federal funding for the District flows from specific appropriations, none could ever be used for anything other than its designated purpose. The prohibition was nothing more than symbolism masquerading as policy. That it was in the bill to begin with is offensive.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration went to Rep. Jose E. Serrano (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government, which oversees the District's budget, with a list of congressional requirements that it wished would disappear. It was left to Mr. Serrano to decide which ones to tackle. So he dumped the domestic partner rider because "it was divisive gay-bashing language designed to satisfy the Republican base." Mr. Serrano's action -- junking a ban on something that wasn't happening anyway -- no doubt plays to his base.

The District's domestic partner registry became law in 1992, but it was not implemented until 2002 when Congress dropped the ban against using local funds to support it. In its veto threat, the administration was not too keen on what it said was a registry that enables "unmarried, cohabitating couples" to "qualify for benefits on the same basis as legally married couples." Funny, when asked about civil unions in October 2004, President Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so." The District's domestic partner registry does not confer marriage rights to same-sex couples. What it does provide is a modicum of protection for gay and, in most instances, unmarried heterosexual couples by allowing hospital visitation; granting access to health benefits, if one of the partners is a municipal employee; and giving a domestic partner the power to make medical decisions for his or her partner. The ban on the use of federal funding -- and other noxious congressional provisions that burden the District, if only with paperwork and audit requirements -- should be removed.