State News: Benefits banned (More proof of negative effects of gay marriage ban)

Although Penny Gardner has been with her partner for 11 years, they still don’t depend on each other when it comes to their health. As a visiting professor in Women, Gender and Social Justice, Gardner isn’t enrolled for health benefits due to her fixed term on campus. But a Michigan Supreme Court ruling has made benefits inaccessible by prohibiting public universities from offering them to partners of gay employees.

“If we were married, we wouldn’t have to jump through all of the hoops,” she said.
Because Gardner and her partner don’t have joint finances, they are ineligible under MSU’s revised health benefits plan.

Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling states that the 2004 ban on gay marriage also prevents state universities from offering health coverage for partners of gay workers.

“It’s deeply disturbing and disappointing, in a broader context of the many ways the campus commitment to rights has been challenged by state legislation,” said Brent Bilodeau, director of the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender Resource Center.

“What’s most disturbing about the value it shows of LBGT families. It gives the signal that LBGT families are not supported in this state.”

As of October 2007, the university had 54 employees who had a partner enrolled for benefits. Comparatively, there are 7,471 married spouses who are enrolled for benefits.

The university began offering health benefits to same-sex partners of MSU employees in 1997.

In 2004, state voters approved an amendment to the constitution that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, banning gay marriage in state.
After the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled the current plan unconstitutional, the university shifted its health benefits policy in July 2007, to a program that does not specifically cover domestic partners.

The new program made benefits available to Other Eligible Individuals that met certain criteria, including joint residency and finances.
Those changes make the recent ruling largely irrelevant to MSU’s benefits plan, said Grant Littke, president of MSU’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Faculty, Staff and Graduate Student Association.

Gardner said the benefits offered by the university are good, but not enough.
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