Partner Benefits for Gay UC Staff Advance

Despite Gov. Pete Wilson’s warning that it was “devaluing the institution of marriage and the family,” a committee of the UC Board of Regents voted overwhelmingly Thursday to extend health benefits to the partners of gay university employees.

A final vote before the entire 26-member board is set for today, and Wilson vowed to return and make his case that granting health benefits to gay couples is not only morally wrong but expensive--the latter because it would bring on lawsuits from unmarried heterosexual couples demanding equal treatment and spread escalating health care costs into other sectors of the state government.

“The University of California is a public trust,” Wilson told the regents, “and has obligations that private institutions do not have . . . . to uphold the institution of marriage.”

But the governor was opposed even by Regent Ward Connerly, a close friend and his partner in the campaign that ended affirmative action in UC admissions. Connerly argued that the benefits measure was needed to keep the university competitive in recruiting and retaining top faculty, and also as a matter of fairness.

“I respect the institution of marriage, after 34 years of it,” Connerly said. “But there are values that transcend marriage: the value of equality, the value of individual liberty and the value of letting people pursue happiness on their own terms.”

Although agreeing 9-3 to pass along the health care benefits plan to the full board, the regents’ finance committee asked UC staff to continue studying a related proposal that would allow each of the nine UC campuses to open married student housing to gay and lesbian couples.

Wilson, making a rare appearance as an ex-officio regent, last attended a board meeting to push the ban on affirmative action. Today, he will be joined by other constitutional officers, including Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante and Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, in what both sides expect to be a close vote.

Throughout Thursday, regents huddled in the hallways to discuss the issue. “There is a lot of lobbying going on,” said Regent Ralph Ochoa, who was appointed earlier this week by Wilson, in a move that critics contend was a way to strengthen the governor’s hand. “I’m getting a lot of ‘Do,’ ‘Don’t’ and ‘Stay out of it.’ ”

The board still has two vacancies and a Wilson spokesman hinted that the governor may appoint two more regents today so they can fill those seats and vote.

Thursday’s committee vote came after 60 students held protests outside and university employees and gay activists in the meeting room arose to plead their case.

“This is my partner of 16 years,” said Gerald Lowell, head librarian and associate vice chancellor at UC San Diego, pointing to a man next to him in a business suit. “We are being treated unfairly by a first-rate institution because we are gay men. . . . We don’t seek special rights, just equal rights.”

Beth Schneider, a UC Santa Barbara sociology professor, introduced her adopted son, Noah, and told the regents, “My partner has not had health benefits for 16 years and that makes me feel like a second-class citizen.”

Suanne Daves, a medical professor at UC Irvine, arose with her partner, and explained that the University of Chicago’s benefits package for domestic partners “tipped the balance” in her decision to accept an offer there. She suggested that UC will lose other valued faculty members if it does not expand its own benefits policy.

UC officials estimate that it will cost $1.9 million to $5.6 million a year to provide medical, dental and vision care to same-sex partners of its employees and retirees. That is on top of the university’s $400-million employee benefits budget.

But Wilson and others have said that the costs could wind up being prohibitive, particularly if unmarried heterosexual couples sue and win the same coverage as same-sex partners, as happened last month in Oakland.