Gays Win Key Ruling On Benefits Unique Decision Backs Oregon State Workers

A judge has ordered that insurance benefits be offered to the homosexual domestic partners of state employees.

Lawyers for the state and the three lesbian couples who filed a lawsuit say the ruling appears to be the first of its kind in the nation.

Two nursing professors and a pharmacy supervisor who work at Oregon Health Sciences University, joined by their longtime partners, sued to obtain medical, dental and life insurance benefits.

Attorney general’s spokesman Peter Cogswell said there was no estimate on the economic impact or how many employees ultimately could be affected.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Stephen Gallagher used especially strong language in Thursday’s ruling condemning the state Employes’ Benefit Board for denying the benefits.

“It is beyond debate that invidious and virulent discrimination has been, and is, directed toward and suffered by the lesbian and gay men communities in this state,” Gallagher said.

The state has 30 days to decide whether to appeal the ruling but no immediate decision was expected, Cogswell said.

The decision was praised Friday by gay rights supporters, including state Rep. George Eighmey, D-Portland, an openly homosexual lawmaker.

“It’s a big step in the right direction which will, by its impact, require the Legislature to seriously look at how we provide benefits to our employees,” Eighmey said.

But Lon Mabon, director of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, quickly condemned the ruling.

“He’s just flat out pro-homosexual,” Mabon said of the judge.

Mabon, who has led several failed anti-gay-rights drives to change state law, said Gallagher had overstepped his role as a judge and was trying to legislate from the bench.

But a national gay rights attorney said she believed the decision was sound and followed the Oregon Constitution.

“The case is about equal pay for equal work,” said Suzanne Goldberg, a lawyer for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York. “It’s a basic issue of pay equity.”

She said various studies have shown benefits such as health insurance, vacations and parental leave can add up to a third of an employee’s total compensation.

Gallagher ruled the Employes’ Benefit Board not only violated a state statute by denying spousal benefits, it also violated the state constitution.

He also defined a domestic partner as someone of the same sex involved in a long-term relationship similar to the three lesbian couples in the case, and spelled out conditions to cover other gay partners.

The judge said each of the three couples have “conducted themselves as members of a “family” and each “has enjoyed a long-term and committed relationship identical to marriage.”

Mabon said the judge was trying to establish a new definition of family that amounted to same-sex marriage, which is not permitted under Oregon law.

“So what we’re really doing is systematically destroying the whole notion of family,” Mabon said.

The attorney for the women, Carl Kiss of Portland, said the state Employes’ Benefit Board had forced homosexuals to pay higher prices for replacement insurance coverage that was not as good as state coverage.

“The statute says not only that you can’t discriminate on the basis of sex, you also can’t discriminate on the basis of the sex of someone with whom the employee associates,” Kiss said.

Kiss said the judge based his ruling partly on decisions following a 1987 executive order by Gov. Neil Goldschmidt barring state agencies from discriminating against homosexuals.

Oregon voters in 1988 approved an initiative overturning the order, but the state Court of Appeals later said the initiative was unconstitutional.