Due to discriminatory tax policies that treat same-sex partner benefits as taxable income, University System of New Hampshire (USNH) employees who access same-sex domestic partner health benefits pay more for those benefits than do opposite sex partners. 

According to the Human Rights Campaign, "as of 2007, employees with partner benefits pay, on average, $1069 per year more in taxes than would an employee with the same coverage for a different-sex spouse." That amount has certainly increased since 2007 given the dramatic increases in health benefits premiums.

By the end of 2011, my partner and I had paid an additional $15,535.09 in federal taxes imposed upon us because we access health benefits through USNH.

This isn't fair, and the USNH Board of Trustees knows it. They claim their hands are tied and that we have to wait for federal change on this issue. But this clearly isn't true --  progressive institutions  including Syracuse University, Yale University, Gates Foundation, Apple, Facebook, Google, Jetblue, Unitarian Univeralist Association, Cisco, Discovery Channel, and others have enacted policies that create equity for their same-sex employees even in the face of government discrimination.

Together, let's tell the USNH Board of Trustees to stop turning a blind eye to discrimination by offering employees who use same-sex partner health benefits a reimbursement for the extra taxes they pay.