A conservative group has added another layer of litigation to a pending legal dispute over whether Michigan’s public colleges and universities may offer benefits to the domestic partners of their gay employees. According to the Associated Press, the American Family Association filed suit today to block Michigan State University from joining many other colleges in providing such benefits (The Chronicle, June 4, 2004).

The group said the policy would violate an amendment to the state’s Constitution, passed in 2004, that barred gay marriages. The association and other groups have been trying to use that amendment, and similar ones adopted in other states, to bar same-sex benefits as well (The Chronicle, November 3, 2004). The Michigan Court of Appeals is considering a lawsuit brought by several gay or lesbian professors seeking to block the amendment from being used in that way. A lower court ruled last year that state colleges could offer the benefits without running afoul of the Constitution (The Chronicle, November 28, 2005).