Students and faculty members discussed the possible repercussions of an amendment that would define marriage as a union only between a man and a woman.
MSU's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Faculty, Staff and Graduate Student Association, or GLFSA, hosted a forum Tuesday to evaluate the local effects on domestic partnership benefits at MSU.
"We are taking a two-tiered approach," GLFSA President Val Meyers said. "First, we want to work to defeat the amendment. If the amendment does pass, we want to know how MSU as a university will respond."
In 1997, the MSU Board of Trustees recognized same-sex partnerships as eligible for benefits such as health and dental coverage, family and medical leave, childcare services, university apartments and life insurance.
The last words of the amendment, which define a "similar union for any purpose," as between a man and a woman, worry many GLFSA members because they believe it affects domestic partnership benefits.
"MSU is a public institution that gets public funds, so it is almost assured that domestic partnership benefits will be illegal if this passes," said GLFSA member John Huebler.
"There will be real human beings, with real children, who will lose their health care."
Penny Gardner, who works with the Coalition for a Fair Michigan which is campaigning to defeat the amendment, said that there are already laws banning gay marriage in Michigan, and that this amendment seeks to take away more rights.
"If this were about gay marriage, they wouldn't need this amendment," Gardner said. "But this is about something else. This is about discrimination - writing discrimination into the Constitution."
Meyers said losing domestic partnership benefits would have a negative affect on education.
"The governor got a push to retain educated people in the state, to help the economy," Meyers said. "If these benefits are made illegal, every public university will be affected by that. How do you expect educated graduate students to stay and work in Michigan?"
It was a partisan issue when the domestic partnership benefits were created, Huebler said. On the MSU Board of Trustees, there were five Democrats and three Republicans. Currently, there are five Republicans and three Democrats, he said.
"We need to be ready to argue why MSU should pursue legal action to have this amendment not be applied," he said.
Meyers said there are about 50 people at MSU who have domestic partnership benefits, and that small number may affect how they are treated.
"Out of 12,000 employees, there are 50 who receive these benefits," Meyers said. "They may feel 50 people don't matter. We need to let them know they do."
In addition to the Coalition for a Fair Michigan, representatives from the Citizens for the Protection of Marriage, a group working to pass the amendment, and the MSU Office of the General Counsel were also invited to the forum.
Citizens for the Protection of Marriage did not respond to any invitations, and the Office of General Counsel declined to attend, said GFSLA program chairman Grant Littke.
