First Domestic Partnership Registry in Arkansas on hold
Blockage of the state's first Domestic Partnership Registry--scheduled to take effect June 22--has left advocates more determined than ever to see the measure implemented later this summer.


/Arkansas News Articles/ - EUREKA SPRINGS, AR, June 19, 2007 - Blockage of the state's first Domestic Partnership Registry--scheduled to take effect June 22--has left advocates more determined than ever to see the measure implemented later this summer.

The ordinance creating the registry was unanimously approved May 14 by the Eureka Springs City Council, after two months of deliberation and citizen input. But anti-gay minister Philip Wilson halted the effective date late last week by submitting to the city clerk 147 signatures from opponents, three more than the minimum required to force a referendum on the issue August 14.

Though disappointed by the delay, proponents are confident a majority of the resort town's voters will ratify the measure. Early broad-based support from hundreds of residents, tourists, church groups and dozens of local businesses, suggest the effort to circumvent the city council's approval will fail at the polls.

Unless the referendum can be tied to a pending sewer bond election, Wilson's maneuver could cost the city--already cash-strapped--between $6,000 and $9,000, the price tag for a special election. Until then, the city will also be deprived of revenue--$35 per couple--from tourists and residents wishing to register. Hotel, restaurant, nightclub and gift shops will see no profit from Arkansas and out-of-state tourists who were holding off on vacation plans until the domestic partnership registry went into effect.

Ironically, Wilson has asserted the Domestic Partnership Registry--available to same-sex and opposite-sex couples--would negatively impact the town's economy, transforming it into a "homosexual mecca" incompatible with such "faith-based" tourist attractions such as the Great Passion Play.

Interestingly, almost 50 of the city's businesses, about 25 percent, are gay owned and have existed in harmony with the Great Passion Play for years, even encouraging their customers to attend the staged production that depicts the life and death of Jesus Christ. Executives of the religious attraction, however, decline to return the favor, suggesting visitors avoid downtown Eureka Springs where they might see same-sex couples holding hands during any one of the city's three annual "Diversity Weekends."

Civil rights watchdog groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and the ACLU have been monitoring events in Eureka Springs since April 9 when the Domestic Partnership ordinance first appeared on the city council's agenda. So has the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association. One member of the association has said he will lobby to have the group's annual meeting in Eureka Springs moved to another city if the Domestic Partnership Registry is not enacted.

Big business also has been waiting to see the fate of the Registry. AT&T alerted thousands of its employees last week that domestic partnership certificates would be available in Eureka Springs.

Wal-Mart, with corporate headquarters in Bentonville, AR, just an hour's drive from Eureka Springs, is likely watching too. The giant retailer, a sponsor of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, is known to be weighing the extension of health insurance and/or company benefits to domestic partners of its employees. Over 600 of its suppliers, at least some of which already provide benefits for domestic partners, have satellite offices in Northwest Arkansas.

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Michael Walsh
Gay News Bureau
Staff Writer
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Eureka Springs, AR
US 72632
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