Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday that she will comply with an Alaska Supreme Court order issued Tuesday to offer health and retiree benefits to same-sex partners of state employees starting Jan. 1.
"We believe that we have no more judicial options to pursue. So we may disagree with kind of the foundation there, the rationale behind the ruling, but our responsibility is to proceed forward with the law and abide by the constitution," Palin said.
But ultimately, she said, she supports denying those benefits through a constitutional amendment, if that's what the public wants.
Palin said she agreed with the Legislature that it's time to seek public opinion on this. On Wednesday, as news reporters looked on, Palin signed a bill that calls for an advisory vote on whether the Alaska Constitution should be amended to ban such benefits.
The vote, set for an April 3 special election, is nonbinding but would guide legislators, she said.
She also said she believes Alaskans already have voiced an opinion with "overwhelming support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage back in 1998, that traditional definition, marriage between one man and one woman." That amendment passed with 68 percent of the vote.
Attorney General Talis Colberg told reporters he is still reviewing another measure passed by the Legislature. It hasn't taken effect but would bar any regulations implementing benefits for same-sex partners. The bill might not be entirely irrelevant, even with the Supreme Court approving the regulations, Colberg said.
Allison Mendel, a private lawyer who handled the ACLU lawsuit that produced the Jan. 1 deadline, said she was glad the governor was moving ahead with the benefit program. But Mendel said Wednesday that she was disappointed with Palin's decision on the advisory vote. She described it as an expensive popularity poll.
"I also think it's another opportunity to whip up a lot of bad feeling and hurt feelings and unnecessary arguments," Mendel said. "I just think we have so many problems that we ought to be dealing with -- education, oil, all the usual things -- that this is an enormous distraction on something that is really very minor financially for the state."
While the benefits make a big difference for people who will receive them, they don't affect the daily lives of anyone else even though some people have strong feelings about them, she said.
Whether there are enough votes in the Legislature to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot is uncertain. Two-thirds of the members of the House and the Senate would have to approve an amendment.
House Speaker John Harris said Wednesday it would be a close call in the House and he didn't think the votes are there in the Senate.
He supports an amendment to ban partner benefits but said it's not a key issue for him compared to matters like a natural gas pipeline and the need to shore up the retirement system.
It all comes down to who should receive state benefits, he said.
"Are they for anybody who can just live together or they are supposed to be for a family, that type of thing?" he said.
If the Legislature did approve an amendment, the measure would be on the ballot in the next general election, in November 2008.
The issue of benefits for same-sex partners has been in litigation since 1999. Nine same-sex couples and the ACLU sued the state and the city, arguing that the governments illegally discriminated against the partners of gay and lesbian employees. Because they are barred by Alaska law from marrying, there is no way they can qualify for health insurance and retiree benefits offered to married couples, the suit argued.
Unmarried opposite-sex partners of state employees remain ineligible for benefits under all scenarios.
The Supreme Court agreed in 2005 that the situation was fundamentally unfair and earlier this year set the deadline underscored in Tuesday's order. Justices also granted a request from the Legislature to submit a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, but turned down that body's request to delay the benefits.
As of Monday, 91 people had applied for same-sex partner benefits, state officials said.
"We're just really pleased that some people get benefits now and that's no longer in doubt," Mendel said Wednesday.
