.Editorial Seattle should push spousal equivalency Just its it was on the verge of making history in the Par ifit Northwest. Seattle < hose to back down List week, the city's Human Rights Department found that it was unfair to not include unmarried do mestic partners in health benefit plans a civil right that only three California t itles (Berkeley. Santa Cruz and West Hollywood) have had enough guts in stand up for The irony behind the whole controversy is that such a program would work to the benefit of everyone, and not just gays and lesbians as opponents claim. In Berkeley, a city with 1 12.1 civic employees, about I Oft people have claimed benefits for their spous al equivalents Of these, the vast majority. 85, are het erosexual The difference between the Seattle program and the Californian programs is that the city's plan would include the employees of private firms — a first of its kind anywhere Two federal roadblocks were behind Seattle's deci sion to back down. First, HRD’s proposals included ex tending benefits to employees of private companies, which is against a federal law. The second is an IRS code that would tax both the employees and the city for the benefits they receive. Such taxation could burden Seattle with its 10.000 per son workforce. in light of these, the Seattle City Council met Mon day and decided to effectively suspend the implemen tation of the ruling from the city's Human Rights De partment I his is unfortunate. it Seattle had taken a strong stand on the rights of people to be recognized as do innstic partners without a traditional marriage, it would have provided an excellent example to regional cities, encouraging them to recognize the fact that the "traditional" family structure of years gone by is no longer the norm. A similar struggle has been taking place here at the I 'diversity. The ASUO has strived to obtain recogni lion of spousal equivalency from its insurance carrier, Prudential. University of (California, Berkeley is one of II e few universities with a health plan for student spousal equivalents. The ASlJO's efforts have so far been in vain. ASUO President Karen Gaffney said she hopes the next ASUO and its insurance committee will continue to lobby for spousal equivalency We hope so too. and if Prudential keeps turning the ASUO down, perhaps it is time to look for a new company. We stand firm on our support for insurance cover age for spousal equivalents — regardless of sexual ori entation — and urge the ASUO and Seattle to continue their efforts towards obtaining fair coverage for all their constituents. BURGCR BliTZ Recall reactor's history, don't glorify it There's a place* up in Washington where history — and bombs — were made. If this history must be remembered, so must the bombs. The Hanford B Reactor, from where the plutonium came for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki at the end of World War II. was re cently ruled eligible for inclusion on the Na tional Register of Historic Places. Despite the mention by members of the Washington Department of Community Development that such a landmark would boost tourism in Richland, no nomination has yet been made on behalf of the reactor. We hope one never is. Hanford B has already earned recogni tion as a technical marvel; it was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Me i hanic.a! Engineers in 1970. It was the first ftdl-sized nuclear reactor in the world, put together just a year and a half after the nu clear i liain reaction was accomplished in 1943. And certainly llanlord B has an impor tant part in history. This is the place that the final end of a baleful world war was con structed in tin1 device that would kill 40,000 Japanese civilians. This atrocity, and all war's atrocities, can best lie guarded against by constant reminders of their existence. In West Germany, many landmarks have been made from Nazi death camps and military bases to remind Germans of the horrors of war. But in the United States, it seems to us that historic landmarks tend to glorify myths of war and bravado, rather than scrutinizing them with hindsight; they exist only to pro mote tourism. There are many monuments to war in this country; but an inspection of Givil War battlefields in the East or the Ari zona Monument in Hawaii confirms that these attractions fatten pocketbooks more than they trouble consciences. Hanford is also too sterile to be a monu ment When one sees the preserved German death camps, one experiences first hand the atrocities that were committed thorn. Visit ing solid, gleaming Hanford B could never capture the devastation and death that oc curred an ocean away. There's also no evidence at Hanford B that we have learned anything from our past. Besides adding the lethal instrument to the Nagasaki bomb, plutonium from Han ford continues to be used in the nation’s contemporary warheads today. The irony in making Hanford B a monument would be sickening. -Letters Wrong tree I