Opinion ID: 2576356
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The governmental interests and the relationship between those interests and the means chosen to advance them

Text: The second step of the sliding-scale analysis requires us to consider the governmental interests advanced by a challenged law. [44] Under minimum scrutiny, these interests need only be legitimate. [45] The third step requires us to evaluate the means chosen to advance the interests identified from the second step. Minimum scrutiny requires a fair and substantial relation between the means (i.e., the classification) and the object of the legislation. [46] The state and the municipality contend that they have three legitimate interests  cost control, administrative efficiency, and promotion of marriage  in limiting employment benefits to spouses and dependent children. We must therefore consider whether these interests are legitimate and, if so, whether the classification bears a fair and substantial relationship to those interests. Cost control. The state and the municipality argue that cost control is a primary purpose of limiting the availability of benefits to spouses of married employees. The state explains that it must offer health insurance to attract and retain a qualified work force and that the legislature should be entitled to take reasonable measures to control the cost of that offering. As the number of program participants increases, so does the cost. The state also asserts that the legislature wanted to limit participation to that small group in a truly close relationship with the employee. The municipality asserts that it decided to limit employee benefits to a small, readily ascertainable group of individuals closely connected to the employee. These assertions indicate to us that the governmental interest here is more specific than just cost control. Indeed, if the governments were interested in simply saving money, the companion goal of promoting marriage would seem to do the opposite. As the benefits programs succeed in convincing couples to marry or to stay married, the governments have to provide benefits to more people. This apparent tension between cost control and promotion of marriage can be harmonized by more appropriately describing the governments' interest in cost control as an interest in controlling costs by limiting benefits to those people in truly close relationship[s] with or closely connected to the employee. We assume that limiting benefit programs to those in truly close relationships with the employee is a legitimate governmental goal. But we do not see how an absolute exclusion of same-sex domestic partners from being eligible for benefits is substantially related to this interest. Many same-sex couples are no doubt just as truly close[ly] relat[ed] and closely connected as any married couple, in the sense of providing the same level of love, commitment, and mutual economic and emotional support, as between married couples, and would choose to get married if they were not prohibited by law from doing so. Although limiting benefits to spouses, and thereby excluding all same-sex domestic partners, does technically reduce costs, such a restriction fails to advance the expressed governmental goal of limiting benefits to those in truly close relationships with and closely connected to the employee. Administrative efficiency. The state and the municipality argue that the need to efficiently administer the benefits programs justifies the spousal limitations. They argue that marriage provides a bright-line distinction that is easily applied, and that allowing employees to designate beneficiaries other than spouses will make it more difficult to administer the programs. The director of the benefits section of the Alaska Division of Retirement and Benefits explained during deposition the potential administrative difficulties that could arise if employees were allowed to designate benefits recipients other than spouses. She discussed theoretical burdens of determining who other than a spouse might be eligible for coverage. The municipality anticipates difficulty in deciding how long a same-sex relationship must last, whether the partners must reside in the same house, whether the relationship must be of a sexual nature, and when the relationship ends. We have recognized that administrative efficiency is a legitimate governmental interest. [47] There is no doubt that making a less-clearly-defined (compared to spouses) category of persons eligible for employment benefits would create administrative burdens. But Alaska's Equal Protection Clause requires more than just a rational connection between a classification and a governmental interest; even at the lowest level of scrutiny, the connection must be substantial. [48] It is significant that other agencies, political subdivisions, and states provide, or have provided, employment benefits to their employees' same-sex domestic partners. The state does not dispute the plaintiffs' contention that the University of Alaska does or did so and that it adopted qualifying criteria. [49] Likewise, other states [50] and municipalities, [51] including the City and Borough of Juneau, [52] offer the same health benefits to domestic partners, per their eligibility standards, that they offer to married couples. We do not assume, as plaintiffs assert, that the state and the municipality can simply adopt the methodology the University of Alaska adopted to administer its programs. The state has many more employees than the university. Nonetheless, that many other agencies, municipalities, and states offer employment benefits to their employees' same-sex domestic partners suggests that the governments' legitimate administrative concerns can be satisfied. The availability of these benefits elsewhere persuades us that administrative difficulties are not an insurmountable barrier to providing benefits if our constitution requires that they be provided. We therefore conclude that the absolute exclusion of same-sex couples is not substantially related to the goal of maximizing administrative efficiency. Promotion of marriage. The state and municipality assert that they have a legitimate interest in the promotion of marriage. To support this assertion, the municipality points to the ancient cultural and legal status of marriage and the place of a marriage between one man and one woman as the historic foundation of society. Amicus curiae Alaska Catholic Conference also contends that the promotion of marriage is a legitimate state interest. It cites in support several United States Supreme Court decisions that have recognized the right to marry as involv[ing] interests of basic importance in our society. [53] The Supreme Court has also explained that marriage is a social relation subject to the state's police power. [54] We have never considered whether the promotion of marriage is a valid governmental interest. Plaintiffs argue that whether or not the promotion of marriage is a legitimate governmental interest, the state is not truly interested in promoting marriage, because, if it were, it would not have prevented gays and lesbians from entering into married relationships. This argument has little merit. The state rightly argues that just because the legislature did not want to promote same-sex marriage does not mean it did not have a sincere interest in promoting traditional marriage. Plaintiffs also challenge the legitimacy of any interest in promoting marriage. They argue that the state and municipality may not assert an interest in promoting married relationships for its own sake. They claim that the government may not favor a class simply because it favors the class, and that discrimination is never a legitimate interest. That proposition is certainly correct, but the promotion of marriage in and of itself is not necessarily discriminatory. And it is not irrational. Among other things, it can encourage family stability (an undeniably valid public goal), as the Alaska Catholic Conference argues. As to this issue, plaintiffs' true challenge is to the decision to promote family stability among opposite-sex couples but not among same-sex couples. They argue that the social good from family stability in same-sex relationships is just as important and valuable as the social good from stable opposite-sex relationships. Assuming plaintiffs' argument is correct, it would not establish that an interest in promoting marriage is not legitimate. Given the social benefits potentially inherent in marriage and the Supreme Court's statement that marriage is subject to state regulation, [55] we conclude that the promotion of marriage is at least a legitimate governmental interest. We accept the state's contention that providing employment benefits to spouses of its employees may encourage persons to marry or stay married. Such benefits are financially valuable and their availability may be an important or even critical factor to persons deciding whether to marry. But the question here is whether the means chosen to advance the interest are substantially related to the governments' interest. The first part of the chosen means  providing a benefit to spouses  is directly related to advancing the marriage interest. But the second part of the chosen means  restricting eligibility to persons in a status that same-sex domestic partners can never achieve  cannot be said to be related to that interest. There is no indication here that denying benefits to public employees with same-sex domestic partners has any bearing on who marries. There is no indication here that granting or denying benefits to public employees with same-sex domestic partners causes employees with opposite-sex domestic partners to alter their decisions about whether to marry. There is no indication here that any of the plaintiffs, having been denied these benefits, will now seek opposite-sex partners with an intention of marrying them. And if such changes resulted in sham or unstable marriages entered only to obtain or confer these benefits, they would not seem to advance any valid reasons for promoting marriage. In short, there is no indication that the programs' challenged aspect  the denial of benefits to all public employees with same-sex domestic partners  has any relationship at all to the interest in promoting marriage. To repeat: making benefits available to spouses may well promote marriage; denying benefits to the same-sex domestic partners who are absolutely ineligible to become spouses has no demonstrated relationship to the interest of promoting marriage. The municipality raises several other arguments that justify brief response. It asserts that it can properly limit eligibility because the Marriage Amendment sanctions the marriage relationship. We discussed above the effect of the Marriage Amendment and rejected a contention that it altogether forecloses plaintiffs' equal protection claims. See Part III.B. Moreover, the marriage relationship sanctioned by the amendment cannot justify unequal treatment unless the means relate to the purpose. No one has suggested that the Marriage Amendment would permit the municipality to double the pay of only its married employees or permit it to hire only married persons. The municipality seems to imply that accepting the plaintiffs' arguments would require defendants to extend marriage benefits to members of other non-traditional marriages, such as persons in polygamous relationships. But polygamy is illegal in Alaska, [56] as are incestuous relationships. [57] Even though same-sex domestic relationships are not marriages in Alaska, [58] they are not illegal. And, following Lawrence v. Texas , they could not be made illegal. [59] Nothing we hold here would require public employers to extend to members of polygamous or incestuous relationships the employment benefits they provide to their employees' spouses.