September 11: are all survivors equal? One year after the terrorist attacks, new laws have broadened the definition of legal partnership--but the laws might not be broad enough to help all September 11 survivors.

John Winter is a little nervous about an upcoming visit with the sister of his late life partner, Tony Karnes.

Prior to September 11, when Karnes was killed while working on the 97th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, he and Winter had been partners for three years. And during that time, Karnes's family accepted them as a couple. "The relationship with his family was good," Winter says, adding that his partner's family has remained "very supportive" since his death. However, Winter has yet to have a detailed conversation with any of Karnes's family members about money.

Winter is one of at least 22 surviving partners of gay men and lesbians killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11. Although the nation has rallied to support the survivors of the victims in the year since the attacks--and while both Congress and some state governments have taken unprecedented steps to recognize gay and lesbian relationships in the wake of the tragedy--Winter and many other same-sex surviving partners still are uncertain of what, if any, financial support they'll actually receive.

"I don't have any legal standing," Winter explains.

Karnes, who worked at a risk-management firm and was only 37 when he died, did not have a will. And he had named his sister, not Winter, as the beneficiary on his life insurance policy. When he died, all of his assets went to his estate, which is being managed by his sister.

Furthermore, Karnes's sister has submitted an application to the Victim Compensation Fund, the federal program set up to compensate family members of victims of the September 11 attacks. And the government is limiting the application process for the fund to one request per victim--leaving Winter totally dependent on her goodwill. "I feel close to his family," he says. "But money can change things. This is a conversation I'll go into with trepidation."

If things sour between Winter and Karnes's family, he worries that he might be left without the financial support he says he needs to rebuild his life since his partner's death. Winter watched the attacks from the window of the home they shared just three blocks south of the World Trade Center. As he saw the buildings burn and eventually collapse, he knew he was witnessing his lover's death. He says the trauma of that day continues to haunt him and has caused him severe mental anguish. The strain affected his work, and in May the 49-year-old lost his job as a management trainer.

Winter's case is not an unusual one, says Jennifer Middleton, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is advising surviving partners who might apply to the Victim Compensation Fund. "Many people are now in the position of negotiating with [their partners'] legally recognized next of kin for just compensation," she says. "A lot can ride on the whim of the biological family." Two out of the 22 known gay and lesbian surviving partners already have submitted applications to the fund, but there has been no announcement regarding those applications, she says.

While Kenneth Feinberg, the special master of the Victim Compensation Fund who has ultimate authority over payouts from the fund, has offered what Middleton calls "some encouragement" to gay and lesbian surviving partners, she notes that he has qualified his remarks with the contingency that any payment must have the approval of the biological family. "So it's all still up in the air," she says.

Because Winter was able to show that his and Karnes's finances were intertwined like that of any married couple, he is receiving significant financial aid from the American Red Cross. He could not say exactly how much money he's received, but he says it covers what would have been Karnes's portion of the rent and utilities for 2002. "It's in the tens of thousands of dollars," he says.

Winter reports that the Red Cross worker who helped him with his application was "extremely sensitive and understanding" regarding the fact that as a gay partner he was the equivalent of any grieving spouse. But not all gay men and lesbians have had such a pleasant encounter. After receiving complaints that some Red Cross workers were dismissing claims by same-sex surviving partners, the Empire State Pride Agenda, a New York gay and lesbian rights group, met with the agency and asked officials to put their non-discrimination pledge into specific guidelines, says ESPA spokesman Joe Tarver. He says there was never a problem with the United Way, the other major private relief agency.

"Our policy was always to define family in an inclusive way," explains Hayyim Obadyah, director of community services for the American Red Cross September 11 Recovery Program. "The problem was in applying the policy evenly." Some workers were not aware that gay and lesbian partners were considered family by Red Cross policy. In response to the discrepancies, the American Red Cross in Greater New York on November 30 issued written guidelines specifically recognizing same-sex couples as family. "It's my understanding that the national disaster services are now working on similar guidelines," Obadyah says.

Some state governments have also taken specific steps to help recognize same-sex partners since September 11. In California, for example, a bill is winding its way through the legislature that would allow a surviving partner to inherit a portion of his or her deceased partner's estate even if there was no will.

But no state has done as much in the wake of the attacks to recognize gay and lesbian couples as New York. Last fall Gov. George Pataki issued an executive order making same-sex surviving partners of those lost September 11 eligible for aid from the state's Crime Victims Board. The benefit is worth $600 a week, up to $30,000. And in order to assist gay men and lesbians applying for aid from the federal Victim Compensation Fund, the state legislature passed a law saying it was New York's intent to recognize same-sex partners as eligible for relief funds. (Feinberg has indicated that state law is one of the guidelines he'll use in determining payment to gay and lesbian surviving partners.)

The legislature also passed a law recognizing domestic partners and their children as eligible for the World Trade Center Memorial Scholarship, which will pay for four years of college at a state institution or the equivalent funding applied to a private institution, and another law that emends workers' compensation benefits of up to $400 per week--or up to $20,800 per year for life--to same-sex surviving partners.

"One of the startling results of September 11 is that the larger society has recognized our shared pain of loss as equivalent to that of any family member," says ESPA executive director Joe Grabarz. "Previously the phrase domestic partner was bandied about as a business term. September 11 put it into very personal terms."

While Grabarz is quick to applaud both New York's governor and the state legislature for recognizing gay and lesbian surviving partners of the terrorist attacks' victims, he says the moves they have made to date have one major drawback: "They are limited to September 11. We hope to use this new understanding to expand benefits to gay and lesbian families beyond those affected by the World Trade Center."

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is already working on a test case it hopes will extend the workers' compensation benefits to all same-sex surviving partners, not just those who lost loved ones on September 11. Bill Valentine and Joe Lopes were together 21 years when an American Airlines plane on which Lopes was working as a flight attendant crashed in the New York City borough of Queens last November. Valentine and Lopes had a joint checking account and were registered as domestic partners in New York City. In his will Lopes named Valentine his executor, and Valentine is listed as the beneficiary on Lopes's insurance policy at work. Despite all this, the insurance company is refusing to pay Valentine the workers' compensation benefit.

"We would have married if we could," Valentine says. "It's appalling that 21 years of our relationship should mean nothing [legally]." He adds that it's hurtful that his loss is minimized in the eyes of the government just because Lopes did not die on September 11.

Lambda staff attorney Adam Aronson is arguing before the New York Workers' Compensation Board that the law passed defining partners of gays and lesbians who died September 11 as spouses should extend beyond that specific date. "It is both unfair and illogical to define someone as a spouse for one day and not the other 364 days of the year," he says.

Despite these limitations, the movement on both the federal and state levels to recognize surviving partners of gay men and lesbians "is hugely significant," says Sean Cahill, director of the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Cahill points to the Mychal Judge Act, signed by President Bush on June 24, which makes it possible for a $250,000 federal death benefit for survivors of police officers and firefighters to go to a same-sex partner. Previously the benefit was restricted to legal spouses, children, or parents. "It's the first time Congress has shown an understanding of family that includes us," he says.

Still, what has happened on the state level in New York may be even more important in the long run, Cahill says. "Over the past decade, most of the movement toward recognizing gay and lesbian families has happened on the state level," he says. "The leaps that New York recently took could eventually have ripple effects in other states." Furthermore, he adds, "there has been tremendous public education and recognition that same-sex couples are family."

But for John Winter and many others, the esoteric benefit of consciousness-raising about same-sex partnerships is not translating quickly enough into the much-needed tangible benefit of financial assistance. "It's extremely unfair," Winter says. "Heterosexual spouses just show up, and all the help and benefits are there. For me, I feel like I'm being told, `Here's another hoop: Jump!'"

Dahir wrote The Advocate's initial coverage of the terrorist attacks last year.

Find additional coverage of gay and lesbian issues related to September 11 at www.advocate.com