What a deal.

That may resemble the spirit of fairness, but in practice, it is patently unfair. Why should the county subsidize health and dental coverage and other benefits for family members of married county employees but not the partners and financial co-dependents of unmarried employees?

That's the question Councilwoman Jenny Wilson has been asking since shortly after taking office. Her first proposal, in 2005, would have covered only domestic partners of county employees. It was rejected in a party-line vote.

Her expanded benefit proposal didn't even make it to a vote this week, upstaged as it was by the back-handed plan proposed by Republican Councilman Mark Crockett to offer benefits to unmarried employees, but no county subsidy.

Salt Lake City has adopted a benefit plan that Wilson used as a model for her proposal. It extends health-care benefits to the "adult designees" of employees and their dependents. It survived a court test - a judge ruled the the city policy is legal under Amendment 3, which is now Article 1, subsection 29 of the Utah Constitution. The article says that marriage in Utah can only be between a man and a woman, and it prohibits any other domestic union that gives the same legal cover as marriage.

District Judge Stephen L. Roth also ruled that, since it is part of an employment contract, the granting of health insurance benefits should be unrelated to marital status.

But Republicans on the County Council see it differently. Councilmen Jeff Allen and David Wilde say it is the county's responsibility to maintain traditional core values (read: marriage) and that the policy they support, which discriminates against unmarried employees, would do that.

Poppycock.

It is not the government's responsibility to decide the community's moral values by making policies that protect only what, or who, it deems appropriate. However, the county does have a duty to treat all its employees equally. Wilson's proposal would do that.