Posted on 02/28/2005 3:55:47 PM PST by AFA-Michigan
Eastern Michigan University is offering half-price tuition benefits to students involved in homosexual relationships with university employees. However, pro-family activists are calling EMU's domestic partner benefits policy not only controversial but unconstitutional as well.
Last year, Michigan voters added a marriage protection amendment to their state constitution. But despite the ban on homosexual marriage, Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti has decided to give special half-off tuition breaks to the homosexual domestic partners of university employees, provided the couple can legally prove they have been together for at least one year.
Local pastor and pro-family activist Dr. Levon Yuille of the Bible Church in Ypsilanti believes the EMU policy violates the state constitution. "Eastern Michigan's contention is that this is simply domestic partners who should (receive) the rights of marriage," he notes. However, he says the school's policy contradicts the feeling of the majority of the citizens, recently expressed at the polls.
"The people of Michigan spoke overwhelmingly in this last election that, no, marriage is an exclusive domain of a man and a woman," Yuille asserts, "so we have already sent a letter to our Attorney General to ask that this be looked into."
The Michigan pastor feels the EMU policy is extreme and will likely open up a Pandora's box of problems. He warns, "When you're saying that two cohabitating gays who call themselves a couple can have 50 percent off their tuition, you've got half the students, if not all the students (in Michigan universities who) could find something unique about their lifestyle possibly, to demand 50 percent off also. So I think it's terribly ill-advised to make this kind of distinction and give this type of extra privilege to individuals who are practicing their type of lifestyle."
Yuille hopes Eastern Michigan University's homosexual tuition benefit plan will prompt Ypsilanti residents to repeal a city ordinance granting special protections based on sexual orientation. Meanwhile, he has asked Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to look into the legality of the EMU policy in light of the state's passage last year of a constitutional amendment banning homosexual marriage.
Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, also sent a statement to Attorney General Cox, denouncing the EMU domestic partner benefits policy. The Michigan pro-family leader asserted that the state's marriage amendment requires state university officials to recognize marriage as being only between one man and one woman. Also, he stated, "Conversely, government employers are prohibited from recognizing or treating homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage, which is clearly the intent and effect of EMU's unconstitutional policy."
According to an Ann Arbor News report, the AFA of Michigan president urged Fox to force EMU to stop offering the benefit. Glenn observed that by giving students involved in homosexual behavior a 50 percent tuition break, the state university officials are forcing taxpayers and other students to "make up the difference," thereby subsidizing behavior they earnestly believe is wrong.
EMU President Craig Willis at craig.willis@emich.edu or 734-487-2211
Boy, I NEVER thought I would live to see anything like that sentence above.
EMU literally gives half off to the so-called same-sex "domestic partner" of a university employee.
See also:
Ann Arbor News: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1351643/posts
Eastern Echo (EMU): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1350737/posts
Schmoe, name one right universally available to everyone else that individuals who engage in homosexual behavior DON'T have.
So any two heterosexuals living together regardless of sex should qualify for the discount.Will the criteria be that they have to prove they are having sex,and will it matter how often ?
That policy is flawed on the face of it.
It's no longer a right if it's only available to certain people and not everyone at large.
Email just sent off.
Agreed. I had to read the first sentence of the article three times to make sure I was understanding it correctly!
Well, I think you are missing the point here. The primary purpose of marriage is *responsibility*, not mere access to benefits.
As a man who entered into a traditional marriage I assumed a responsibility to raise and support children. I ADD to society by doing that. The "benefit", free health care for my spouse if she chooses to stay home and raise those children, and health care for the children, is not the purpose of marriage. Sure, there might be some childless marriages where a partner might benefit, but the health insurance benefit was not designed for that. It is an incidental benefit, designed to help families raise children. And, when got divorced, I kept those responsibilities, without the "benefit" of marriage.
As a matter of fact, as a self-employed person I have NO health "benefit". My premiums, though, would increase drastically if my health insurance company had to assume the risk of partners of gay couples.
And, if you want to keep this honest and open, that particular demographic is not the healthiest one. Nor do I believe the proponents of gay rights would allow the additional incremental health risk they bring to the insurance pool to be charge to them. To the contrary, I am sure they would claim "discrimination" if they were required to assume the financial risk for their behavior..
In summary, traditional marriage is about obligation, responsibility and ADDING TO society.
Proponents of gay marriage believe that marriage is about benefits, additional rights and access to programs that TAKE AWAY from society.
I could pick your post apart piece by piece - it is full of inaccuracies and misleading statements... but you seem to be a a zealot rather than someone looking for an honest discussion, and mah daddah tol' me nevah to argue wit' a fool.
Have a nice day.
"Well, I think Schmoe would have said "the right to marry the person that they love (of same sex) and share the benefits of said marriage, like discounts at their employer."
(1) Individuals who engage in homosexual behavior have the same legal access to the institution of marriage as defined by law -- i.e., one man and one woman -- as do any other individuals.
(2) There is no universal "right" to marry. In fact, it involves the issuance of a government license for which the applicant must meet legal qualifications. That license is not legally available -- nor should it be -- to couples comprised of the same sex, or of brother and sister, or of a 40 year old and an 8 year old. From a legal standpoint, whether or not such couples might "love" each other is irrelevant.
(3) Further, civilly recognized marriage is not a matter of "rights" but of government regulation and restriction of otherwise unrestricted sexual behavior. Society legally licenses marriage between a man and a woman because such relationships have over thousands of years proven their benefit to society, among other things, as the healthiest, safest, most stable and secure environment for the raising each successive generation of children.
(4) Schmoe's or anyone else's interesting opinions to the contrary aside, in Michigan this is a matter of constitutional law. By overwhelming vote of the people of Michigan, state government -- including government employers such as EMU -- are prohibited from recognizing homosexual or other nonmarital relations as equal or similar to marriage.
As far as I'm concerned, government should not be involved in marriage in the first place.
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