Alaska Civil Liberties Union v. Alaska

Alaska Civil Liberties Union v. State of Alaska, 122 P.3d 781 (Ak. 2005), is an Alaska Supreme Court case holding that Alaska's Ballot Measure 2, which bans same-sex marriage, does not foreclose state equal protection claims brought on behalf of same-sex couples.

Background

The State of Alaska and the municipality of Anchorage offers employment benefits to spouses of employees, but not to unmarried couples. The Alaska Civil Liberties Union and nine homosexual couples filed suit against Alaska and Anchorage in superior court, alleging that this denial violates their equal protection under the Alaska Constitution. The Superior Court denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, on the grounds that "heightened scrutiny was unwarranted because the state and the municipality were discriminating between married and unmarried employees, not between opposite-sex and same-sex couples", that "a right to employee benefits, which it ruled was not a fundamental right", and that "the defendants had a legitimate interest in reducing costs, increasing administrative efficiency, and promoting marriage". Plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court.

Court Ruling

On appeal, defendants argued that Ballot Measure 2 foreclosed plaintiffs' equal protection claims. The Court rejected that argument, on the basis that Measure 2 "does not explicitly or implicitly prohibit public employers from offering to their employees' same-sex domestic partners all benefits that they offer to their employees' spouses. It does not address the topic of employment benefits at all", nor was there "any legislative history implying that, despite its clear words, the Marriage Amendment should be interpreted to deny employment benefits to public employees with same-sex domestic partners".