Michigan court ruling puts gays in a quandary

A Michigan Supreme Court ruling last week denying same-sex partner health benefits for state employees is prompting at least one state university professor to flee Michigan as gay advocacy groups elsewhere point to the decision as an indicator of the kinds of problems caused by same-sex marriage bans.

Michael Falk, a professor at University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, intends to move away from Michigan next week with his partner, Matthew Scott, a naturalist for the university’s arboretum, to seek opportunities in Maryland.

Even though Michigan’s Supreme Court justices are known to be conservative, Falk said “it was still shocking to hear” that the Supreme Court’s decision was “the final word” on the subject.

“And that’s really the state of things in Michigan,” he said. “There’s really no ultimate protection for civil rights for gay and lesbian people in the state.”

Falk, one of the 21 plaintiffs who brought the case to the Supreme Court, said he planned the move after the Michigan Court of Appeals made a previous ruling in 2007 barring benefits to same-sex couples. The fact that he is leaving so soon after the high court’s decision is coincidental.

The Court of Appeals ruling really made Falk and his partner “reevaluate whether we felt that Michigan was the state we wanted to settle down in long term.”

On May 7, Michigan’s high court ruled 5-2 that state employers, including government offices and schools, cannot extend health insurance benefits to the partners of employees in same-sex relationships.

Justices decided that a same-sex marriage ban in the state constitution, approved by Michigan voters in 2004, prohibits state employers from offering the benefits. The court ruled that the language in the amendment prohibits not only same-sex marriage but also a “similar union for any purpose” and that state employers providing health benefits would be too similar to marriage.

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