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Don't cut single seniors adrift

By Bentley Lipscomb
In print: Monday, October 6, 2008

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I've spent four decades fighting for the rights of seniors in Florida, and I am deeply troubled by the threat Amendment 2 poses for Florida's large senior population. Amendment 2 does not simply define marriage; it could actually restrict who could receive basic family protections and health benefits.

The ramifications of this misdirected amendment could hit seniors particularly hard. Many seniors who are widowed do not remarry because they risk losing essential pension benefits or fear a new marriage might upset estate plans for their adult children.

In my own family, I have seen how difficult my widowed aunt's circumstances became in her later years. She entered adulthood during the Depression and got married. While she worked, she lived with financial caution and saved for her retirement, but she was not provided with a pension from her employer. When her husband, whom she had been married to for several years, passed away, she wound up alone and financially unstable. She lived on the economic margins, receiving minimal Social Security benefits. But as a widow, she was not interested in remarrying. However, she yearned for someone to be at her side as she faced hospital stays, medical treatment decisions and higher costs of living. She also wanted to have fun and enjoy her golden years.

Some widows and widowers, like my aunt, also see marriage as a religious commitment that they choose to make only once. Yet, they often form loving bonds with someone who becomes their closest family, whom they care for and love. Unmarried older couples would not be able to enjoy the same ability to take care of each other. Even visiting loved ones in the hospital when they are sick would be problematic. Then there's the whole legal issue around making decisions about the end of life.

The way proponents of Amendment 2 drafted this initiative will cause problems and create obstacles for seniors who have chosen to rely on domestic partnership, other family benefits and legal protections even though they are not married.

This amendment threatens to strip away essential health and family protections unmarried seniors count on to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Already, backers of the amendment are preparing to challenge Tampa's domestic partnership policy that provides health coverage and other protections to firefighters, police officers and other municipal employees.

The Office of Economic and Demographic Research, which is required to identify the impact of proposed amendments, stated: "If domestic partnership registries are deemed substantially equivalent to marriage, their termination could place registrants at risk of losing specified rights and benefits, such as those related to health insurance."

As we go through life, our family unit changes. New members are born, and long-time members depart. We may need to construct new family as we lose biological and legal connections. Allying ourselves with people whom we care about, and who care about us, is vital to our social, emotional, physical and financial well-being.

My wife, Doris, and I have been happily married for many years, and we are now retired baby boomers. We have reached the point in our lives where our circumstances are changing. In my career, I worked as the first secretary of the Department of Elder Affairs and as director of Florida's AARP. Now, the issues facing seniors have become even more personal to me as I enter retirement myself.

Doris and I do not have any children, and as we age we must confront and plan for the possibility that one of us may be alone later in life. Last weekend, at a reunion of three baby boomer couples who also happen to be childless, we joked about cultivating our nieces and nephews and the children of good friends to advocate and care for us later in life if we lose our resources to live independently. We also talked about our need for social, physical and financial security when the security of our coupledom is no more.

All Florida's seniors share these needs, and Amendment 2 will seriously threaten our ability to take care of ourselves and our loved ones in our later years. I'm voting no on Amendment 2, because Florida's Constitution should not make it harder for people to take care of their families.

Bentley Lipscomb was the first secretary of the Department of Elder Affairs under Gov. Lawton Chiles and was executive director of Florida's AARP. He is retired and lives in Pinellas County.