Marriage, no; health care, OK.The state of Alaska passed one of the nation's first constitutional bans on same-sex marriage Noun 1. same-sex marriage - two people of the same sex who live together as a family; "the legal status of same-sex marriages has been hotly debated" couple, twosome, duet, duo - a pair who associate with one another; "the engaged couple"; "an inseparable in 1998. Now it may be helping to undo some of the sweeping restrictions such bans have imposed on state governments across the country. The Alaska supreme court The Alaska Supreme Court is the state supreme court in the State of Alaska's judicial department (Alaska Court System). The supreme court is composed of the chief justice and four associate justices, who are all appointed by the governor of Alaska (see List of Governors of Alaska) on October 28 unanimously ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny benefits to the same-sex partners same-sex partner Social medicine A domestic partner of the same genotypic sex. See Homosexual. of public employees, rejecting the argument that providing the benefits ran counter to the same-sex marriage ban. "Other courts in other states could [now] be looking to the state of Alaska on how it handled the equal-protection rationale," said Michael Macleod-Ball of the American Civil Liberties Union American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nonpartisan organization devoted to the preservation and extension of the basic rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution. . The ruling came as a relief to plaintiff Lin Davis, a state employee who has struggled to pay for health benefits for her out-of-work partner, Maureen Longworth. "It is such a relief to know that we'll soon have access to the same health benefits that my coworkers do," she said. |
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