A judge ordered the state to offer health insurance to the partners of gay state employees, saying failing to make the same benefits available to gay and heterosexual couples amounts to discrimination.
Judge Stephen Gallagher ruled the Oregon Employes' Benefit Board violated the state constitution by denying spousal benefits to three lesbian couples who have all "enjoyed a long-term and committed relationship identical to marriage.""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," he wrote in his Thursday opinion.
State Rep. George Eighmey, who is gay, Friday called the decision "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."
Opponents said the judge was trying to use the ruling to legitimize same-sex marriages.
"What we're really doing is systematically destroying the whole notion of family," said Lon Mabon, director of the Oregon Citizens Alliance.
Lawyers for the state and the three couples who sued for health benefits say Gallagher's ruling appears to be the first of its kind in the nation. Cities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco have offered health benefits to partners of gay city workers, but no court order was involved and the benefits did not extend to state employees.
The state has 30 days to appeal and has not yet decided to do so, attorney general's spokesman Peter Cogswell said Friday. He could not say how many employees might be affected or the possible cost of the ruling.
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.
Their attorney, Carl Kiss, said the state had forced homosexuals to pay higher prices for inferior insurance 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.