The Somerville City Council recently passed ordinances bolstering the rights of individuals in non-traditional relationships.

By Jim Clark

At the latest meeting of the Somerville City Council on Thursday, March 23, ordinances amending section 1-4 of the Code of Ordinance to add definitions for relationship status and intimate personal relationships and amending section 2-326 of the Code of Ordinances, related to the Personnel program were brought forward and passed by the Council.

A statement issued by the Council explained the ordinances in detail:

Somerville City Council just made history by passing groundbreaking non-discrimination ordinances protecting polyamorous families and relationships. The ordinances make Somerville the first city in the United States to extend explicit legal protections to polyamorous and other non-nuclear families and relationships.

The ordinance, introduced by City Councilor At-Large Willie Burnley and Councilor JT Scott, prohibits discrimination in employment, policing, and more based on one’s family and relationship structure. The ordinances protect diverse families and intimate relationships in the city, including multi-partner/multi-parent families and relationships, step-families, multi-generational households, non-nuclear family structures, consensually non-monogamous relationships, and consensual sexual and/or intimate relationships, including asexual and aromantic relationships.

The ordinances were drafted by lawyers and activists at the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, a project of Chosen Family Law Center and Harvard Law School’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic. Somerville previously partnered with these organizations to pass their multi-partner domestic partnership ordinance in Somerville in 2020, as well as Cambridge and Arlington, MA in 2021. Similar non-discrimination laws and plural domestic partnership laws based on their model ordinances have been introduced on the west coast and are expected to pass this year. Councilmembers from the City of Berkeley, California, are working simultaneously to pass a similar non-discrimination ordinance for non-monogamous families and relationships. “People should be able to love and provide support for each other without fear of discrimination,” said Terry Taplin, the Berkeley City Council member sponsoring the Berkeley ordinance.

“As a polyamorous person, I’m grateful to live in a city that embraces rather than punishes people based on their family or relationship structure,” said Somerville Council member Willie Burnley Jr., who introduced the ordinance. “The protections we extend today not only cement Somerville’s legislative leadership and legacy on non-monogamous rights, they ensure that our neighbors know that they live in a community where they can be who they are freely and love whom they love openly without fear of government interference.”

“We commend the Somerville city council for their leadership on this issue.” shared Dr. Heath Schechinger, counseling psychologist and Co-Founder of Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition. “Every family, including polyamorous ones, should have equal legal protections, and it’s heartening to witness this crucial step in cultivating a society that cherishes the liberty to love and form secure families without the burden of discrimination.”

“With the passage of today’s non-discrimination ordinance, Somerville is vindicating the promise it made to its residents three years ago when it passed the first multiple domestic partnership ordinance in the country that Somerville’s government will not only legally recognize diverse family structures, but also protect them from unequal treatment,” said Alexander Chen, Founding Director of the Harvard LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, who testified before the Legislative Matters Committee concerning features of the bill. “Children deserve to know that their families are protected no matter what shape they take.”

Diana Adams (they/them) is Executive Director of Chosen Family Law Center and an attorney who has been advocating for legal support for polyamorous and non-nuclear families since founding their New York firm in 2007, as described in their TED Talk. They commented: “Since 2007, I have represented thousands of clients in beautiful constellations of family beyond nuclear, including polyamorous families. I’ve represented many clients in child custody cases in which inaccurate stigma about being polyamorous was used against them. I’ve heard countless stories of discrimination, including being fired for just mentioning being polyamorous. In 2023 when the majority of American children and adults don’t live in a heterosexual nuclear family, we need anti-discrimination laws like this one in Somerville to protect and value families as they exist, so we don’t need to worry about losing our job or custody of our child because of how we build family.”

“Millions of Americans are in consensually non-monogamous relationships and non-nuclear families,” added Brett Chamberlin, Executive Director for the Organization for Ethical Non-monogamy and Polyamory (OPEN), which organized for passage of this and other bills. “These populations are increasingly organizing for the acceptance and protections that all families and consensual relationships deserve.”

Kimberly Rhoten, a socio-legal scholar who has written extensively on the current legal discrimination against consensually non-monogamous parents and Co-Founder of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, noted, “Anti-discrimination legislation like this can protect diverse families and their children from harmful prejudices that would otherwise result in limiting or removing a polyamorous parent’s custody rights to their own children. By adopting laws that directly recognize these families as worth protecting, courts may think twice about these harmful actions.”

Chosen Family Law Center’s Senior Legal Director and Harvard LGBTQ Advocacy Clinic’s Clinical Instructor Andy Izenson agreed, “It is crucial that protection from discrimination advances hand-in-hand with relationship recognition. As we learned from the fight for same-sex marriage, relationship recognition alone is a hollow victory, when our community members can celebrate their relationship legally on Sunday and get fired for it on Monday. Discrimination protections are an important part of a comprehensive legal strategy that prioritizes the most marginalized community members instead of only serving the needs of the privileged.”

“This legislation is about more than polyamory,” according to David Jay, founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. “As an asexual activist who’s part of a three-parent family, I’m proud to be part of the coalition advocating for this legislation. Relationships and families built around nonsexual intimacy often don’t fit the two-partner model. Asexual people need these protections, so do solo parents with communities of care.”

This historic move is applauded by polyamorous individuals and organizations across the country, who have long faced stigma and discrimination. This passage of these bills is an essential step forward in the movement for family inclusivity and recognition of the increasing diversity of families in the United States.