What is the new mutual commitment registry?

This registry creates a way for Salt Lake City to recognize relationships of mutual commitment, support, and caring. By doing so, businesses that choose to do so, can easily use the registry to determine eligibility for benefits.

What are the benefits of offering a mutual commitment registry?

• This registry is for adult residents of the City who share a primary residence and rely on one another as dependents. The measure would help many of our elderly residents, people with adult dependent children, as well as same-sex couples.
• It is a tool for employers to use, voluntarily, to determine eligibility for benefits from their company.
• It will allow Salt Lake City residents who register health care visitation rights to Salt Lake City health care facilities.
• It allows registered individuals access all facilities owned and operated by the City, such as recreational facilities, in the same manner as that of a spouse or children.

How would the registry work?

• The City will create and maintain the registry and provide certificates to registrants.
• The mutual commitment registry will be administered by the City Recorder’s Office.

How does this help employers in Salt Lake City?

• Mutual Commitment benefits are offered by over half of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States and numerous employers throughout Salt Lake City to their employees.
• The registry helps those local businesses that choose to offer benefits to individuals to save time and money in the process of determining status of their employees for a variety of purposes.
• Similar registries are in place in cities from Baltimore to Phoenix to Eugene and throughout California.

What will residents have to do to prove their mutual commitment status?

• Before being considered for mutual commitment status, there are a number of requirements that must be met. The requirements include a statement that the individuals are in a relationship of mutual commitment, support, and caring, and are responsible for each other’s welfare.
• Registrants must be each other’s sole partner; be over 18 years old; be competent to contract; and share a primary residence in Salt Lake City.
• Applicants will be required to provide any three of the following five documents:

1. A joint loan obligation, mortgage, lease, or joint ownership of a vehicle
2. A life insurance policy, retirement benefits account, or will designating one declarant as the other’s beneficiary thereto, or will of one declarant which designates the other as executor
3. A mutually granted power of attorney for purposes of healthcare or financial management
4. Proof showing that the declarant is authorized to sign for purposes of the other's bank or credit account
5. Proof of a joint bank or credit account

What will the registry cost tax payers?

Nothing. The cost of administering the program would be covered by a $25 registration fee.

Is it a backdoor into gay marriage?

• No. The City has the authority to create a Mutual Commitment Registry under the general welfare clause, which grants Salt Lake the power to “preserve the health, and promote the prosperity, improve the morals, peace and good order, comfort, and convenience of the city and its inhabitants.” Utah Code Ann. § 10-8-84(1).
• The ordinance does not implicate or conflict with either Article I, Section 29 of the Utah Constitution, commonly known as “Amendment 3,” or Utah’s “Marriage Recognition Policy,” the state statute defining marriage.

Does this ordinance require Salt Lake City businesses to offer mutual commitment benefits to their employees?

Absolutely not.