IRVINE : UCI Acts to Clarify Gay Housing Issue

Administrators at UC Irvine, in their strongest declaration to date on the thorny issue of domestic partnerships, said Wednesday that “gay and lesbian couples . . . do not qualify for family housing.”

A university policy statement said that gays have the same rights as all other students to seek exceptions to the housing policy based on such factors as financial hardship. But it emphasized that the procedure “does not authorize an exception to be made on the basis of a gay or lesbian relationship.”

In the wake of protests on campus in recent days over what was seen as a reversal of gay rights, the university’s formal statement on the issue was aimed at quelling widespread speculation and some confusion over the school’s policy. But some gay leaders reacted angrily nonetheless.

The issue of whether gay couples can rent family-housing units on campus, modestly priced at $450 to $650 a month, took on added potency, coming less than three months after city of Irvine voters stripped gay rights protections from a city law in a heated ballot initiative.

University administrators insisted that their statement Wednesday marked only a clarification of existing policy, not a change--even though at least three lesbian couples are now living together in student housing.

“A gay or lesbian relationship is not grounds for a non-student being allowed to live in student housing, and it never has been,” Chancellor J.W. Peltason said in an interview.

Under the university’s policy, unmarried heterosexual couples are also excluded from family housing. But gay leaders counter that--unlike heterosexual couples--they are prohibited by law from being married and should instead by recognized as domestic partners.

Some gay-rights advocates said that Peltason’s statement appeared to mark a softening of the administration’s position as a result of recent protests.

In sending word to the campus last week that gays would not be given married housing, the gay-rights advocates said, the university appeared to leave no room for exceptions, but the issue now seems open to that possibility.

“It’s a win in the sense that we’re back to where we started,” said Christine Browning, a university psychologist who helps head a campus panel on gays.

But gay student leader Randy Kerr disagreed, saying: “I consider this a step backward.”

“The university’s saying ‘you don’t have a right (to family housing), but we may give it to you anyway.’ That’s not going to be enough; in fact, it’s pretty demeaning,” Kerr said.

None of the three lesbian couples now in family housing is being asked to leave, administrators said.