Married same-sex couples now are eligible for health-care benefits offered to spouses of workers at the University of Arkansas System, while other state employers so far remain quiet about expanding benefit plans.

The Arkansas State University System has not made changes to benefits and "is awaiting guidance from the attorney general's office on this issue," Jeff Hankins, a spokesman for the ASU System, wrote in an email.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is filing an appeal asking the Arkansas Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court decision that struck down a 2004 state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The ruling led to several hundred same-sex couples being married, mainly in Pulaski and Washington counties.

The governor so far has not asked the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration to review employee benefits for state workers, said Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe. He said he hadn't heard of any other agency taking action after the ruling besides UA.

A three-paragraph memorandum dated Monday from the UA System's general counsel, Fred Harrison, begins by giving background on the marriage case that opened a window for gay couples to wed in Arkansas. Harrison's memorandum is addressed to Ann Kemp, the UA System's vice president for administration, and Steve Wood, associate vice president for benefits and risk-management services.

The note advises UA System officials "that with respect to the University's medical benefit plan any same sex couple married in Arkansas or married in another state recognizing same sex marriage shall be eligible for coverage under the plan unless the Circuit Court's decision is stayed by the Arkansas Supreme Court."

The memorandum continues: "Same sex couples married in Arkansas before such stay shall be entitled to participate in the University's plan unless the stay order addresses this issue to the contrary."

A stay of the court decision would prevent marriage licenses from being issued to same-sex couples.

Ben Beaumont, a UA System spokesman, said campus human-resource leaders were informed of the change on Thursday. The UA System includes the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences -- the largest state employer, according to a report last year from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

The UA System has 16,491 employees enrolled to receive health-care benefits. Before the change Thursday, employees could choose extended plans covering spouses but not domestic partners -- with Beaumont emphasizing that the plan remains the same in that it applies to married partners only.

More than 18,000 dependents receive health-care benefits through a UA workers health-care plan, but Beaumont said UA doesn't track whether those dependents are spouses or children.

It's not known how many people might be newly eligible for benefits.

"It's incredibly meaningful to me," said J.D. DiLoreto, a development assistant with the University of Arkansas' Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. He said he isn't married to his domestic partner, also a UA employee, but added that UA's move "could be very beneficial to us kind of moving forward."

He said he was disappointed to learn of UA's benefits policy upon taking a job with UA in August, and called UA's decision to offer benefits to married same-sex couples "a pleasant surprise."

Beaumont, upon being asked about how the change might affect the UA System financially, said, "Given the size of our plan, we expect it to be very minimal." The UA System is self-insured.

UA employees may receive other benefits, including life insurance. The memorandum only advised immediate changes to health-care benefits but touched on the topic of other possible changes.

"Eligibility for the University's other benefits depending upon marital status should be examined on a case by case basis but it is likely that such benefits would be granted to a same sex married couple," wrote Harrison.

Beaumont described the decision by UA strictly in terms of the law.

"There's nothing else that has influenced this other than the judge's ruling and the interpretation of the law in light of the judge's ruling," Beaumont said.

Even with that legalistic explanation as the only stated basis for UA's decision, it drew praise from advocates for marriage equality.

"I think it was a big move on their part, in my opinion and just in my opinion, to show they really are on the side of equality on this because they came forward so quickly as opposed to waiting for the Supreme Court ruling," said Cathey Shoshone, co-chairman of Arkansans for Equality. News of the change by the UA System spread via the group's Facebook page.

Cheryl Maples, one of the attorneys representing same-sex couples in the marriage case, noted that the news of UA's decision was circulating even before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza's Thursday afternoon response to a request for clarification of his May 9 ruling.

"That part is exciting to me because they chose to do that regardless of what occurred later in the day," Maples said. She said the same-sex couples recently married "are entitled to everything that heterosexual couple would be entitled to."

However, other parts of Arkansas law could potentially come into play regarding access to benefits. Janson Wu, senior staff attorney with Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders noted that Arkansas is a rare state that -- for the moment, at least -- has legal gay marriage but no statewide employment nondiscrimination law.

Other states had "a lot of building blocks in place" that led to public employers quickly extending health benefits to legally recognized same-sex married couples, Wu said.

For the UA System, where campuses compete regionally and nationally for top-notch faculty members, the move means it is joining a trend established by many other colleges and universities, said Steve Sanders, an associate professor at Maurer School of Law at Indiana University who has written about same-sex marriage.

"Colleges and universities were actually among the leaders in offering domestic-partner benefits," Sanders said, with one of the reasons they have done so being "to attract and retain the best faculty members."

Fifty-seven percent of colleges and universities responding to a national survey stated they offered health benefits for same-sex domestic partners, according to results published last year by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The same group reported that 40 percent of colleges and universities did so in 2006.

Faculty members at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville several years ago passed a resolution asking to expand health-care benefits to domestic partners, regardless of marriage. They did so, however, after the 2004 marriage-defining amendment.

Harrison, the UA System general counsel, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2011 that "the risk we're dealing with in reviewing that is the possibility that the university, if we adopt this position, will be sued."

Three years later, though, the UA System is out front on an issue likely to take a few more twists and turns before being resolved.

Information for this article was contributed by Sean Beherec of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A section on 05/16/2014