Attorney says Michigan State Univ. seeking new way to skirt marriage amendment

Attorney says Michigan State Univ. seeking new way to skirt marriage amendment

A pro-family attorney says Michigan State University may still be violating the state's marriage amendment even though it has announced it will stop issue healthcare benefits to the homosexual partners of its employees.

Michigan State claims it is dropping the old policy to comply with an appeals court ruling that stated the constitutional amendment banning same-sex "marriage" also would ban domestic partnership benefits for partners of employees at public universities and institutions.

Attorney Pat Gillen of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor filed a lawsuit challenging the university's policy as inconsistent with state law, including Michigan's marriage amendment. He fears the new policy may still be unconstitutional and make an end-run around the marriage amendment.

"I just think that there are [sic] a liberal, secular elite which provides governance to these state institutions, which frankly refuses to abide by the will of the people," he argues. "That's what this is about -- this is outright resistance in the first instance, and I think this policy is probably a continuation of that stubborn resistance to the will of the people."

Gillen, who helped craft the language of the state's 2004 marriage amendment, notes the revamped policy extends coverage to a so-called "other eligible individual," or a person who has lived with the university employee for 18 months and is not a dependent. He suggests that in doing so, the school is circumventing the marriage amendment by extending benefits "according to criteria that limit it to same-sex domestic partners, but not doing so in a forthright and apparent way."