WOULD YOU TRUST THIS MAN WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE?
James Bopp


In the category of nauseating news of the week: An anti-gay-marriage amendment making its way through the Indiana Legislature could take domestic partner benefits away from employees of Indiana University, following a sickening trend:

The Michigan Court of Appeals, citing that state's marriage amendment, ruled last month that universities can't offer benefits to unmarried domestic partners of their employees.

In a suit against Miami University of Ohio, a state legislator claimed that the school's domestic-partner benefits violated the Ohio marriage amendment. (A judge ruled in November that the lawmakers didn't have legal standing to sue.)

Today, 119 Indiana University employees have registered domestic partners, which gives partners access to health benefits as well as tuition discounts for partners and their dependents.

As reported by Steve Hinnefeld in the Herald-Times, supporters of the Indiana amendment say its language is written to stop "activist judges" from ordering the state to recognize gay marriage or marital rights - not to restrain universities from offering benefits to gay or unmarried couples.

"All it does is prevent the courts from requiring equal benefits for same-sex couples as are given to married couples," said James Bopp, a Terre Haute attorney who testified in favor of the amendment in a Senate committee. Bopp, a top Republican lawyer, told Hinnefeld that it's appropriate to write into the state constitution that marriage is "the union of one man and one woman," the first sentence of the amendment.

While the University and these conservative lawmakers insist that the legislation would have no bearing on IU's ability to offer domestic benefits, it's obviously the first step toward disaster for GLBT couples.