The agreement ends a lawsuit filed in 2007 by three lesbians whose domestic partner benefits ended when they retired from state jobs.

In 2003, Bill Richardson issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage. Under the order, domestic partner coverage is not available to employees after they retire, while spousal coverage is provided. 

The retired state workerswith the help of the ACLU filed suit claiming the state discriminated against them in canceling the health benefits. 

The lawsuit charged that the state’s policy of denying lesbian and gay state retirees equal health insurance for their partners violated the state constitution’s equality guarantees. 

Unlike their straight colleagues, lesbian and gay employees are barred from marrying in the state and therefore, in the absence of domestic partner benefits, are denied equal compensation.

Tuesday, the state agreed to extend the benefits retroactive to 2003.

“We are very pleased that the state has agreed to settle this litigation and provide the insurance.  It wasn’t fair that the state forced lesbian and gay employees to pay the high cost of health care for often inferior health insurance for their families when they worked just as hard as their straight colleagues,” said Peter Simonson of the ACLU of New Mexico.  

“I’m sure this will be welcome news to all lesbian and gay state employees, but especially to those who have retired or are planning to do so soon.” 

Under the settlement, the state has agreed to develop a process for enrolling those interested during the next open enrollment period, which comes this fall.  

“This is fantastic news.  We can finally start planning our retirement,” said Havens Levitt, who has been a teacher for the Albuquerque public school for 25 years. 

 “Until now, our only option was for me to keep working because my partner’s employment doesn’t provide insurance for her and private insurance was just too expensive.  It means a lot that the state has acknowledged I should be treated the same as my straight colleagues.”

A similar bill is currently working its way through the House, but even if it passes it is unlikely it would be taken up by the Senate this year.

Under the legislation, couples would have been able to have registered with local county clerks and receive certificates attesting their relationships. Partners would have had to attest they are over the age of 18 and not otherwise in a relationship.

They would have been guaranteed access to each other in hospitals and be able to make medical decisions for partners who are unable to make those decisions themselves, and they would be granted other state benefits and rights accorded to partners in marriages.

Opponents of the measure said that it threatened tradition marriage and was likely violated state law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. A last minute rewriting of several portions of the bill to remove ambiguity between the registry and marriage failed to convince opponents.

In the end the legislation failed 17-25, with 10 Democrats joining all 15 Republicans in opposing the bill.

Previous attempts to grant some rights to unmarried and gay couples also failed in the Senate, but not by such a wide margin.  In 2007, a bill was defeated by a single vote.

Outside the legislature, gay and lesbian couples who had gathered were visibly shaken.

“If you’re mad, you should be mad,” Equality New Mexico’s Linda Siegle, told the group. “The people in this building said you are not equal, you are not worthy, you do not deserve the same rights as most of them have.”

” I share the sadness of everyone in New Mexico who hoped this vote would go differently and the state would take a step toward recognizing equality for all New Mexicans,” said Joe Solmonese, President of the Washington DC-based Human Rights Campaign.

“Today’s vote helps no one in the state of New Mexico.  It protects no one’s marriage. It grants dignity to no couple’s relationship. It does nothing to ensure that all families receive the equal rights and responsibilities they deserve. But no one is giving up.  It has been a long, hard struggle for couples and families in New Mexico who simply want equal rights, and this effort continues, as it does across the nation.”

The bill had the support of Gov. Bill Richardson (D).

“I’m disappointed by the Senate’s actions today in defeating what is fundamentally an issue of civil rights and equality,” Richardson said in a statement.

In 2003, Richardson issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage.

Five other states – California, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont – as well as the District of Columbia have enacted domestic partner or civil unions laws that provide the same benefits under state law that would have been provided by the Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act in New Mexico.

Two states, Massachusetts and Connecticut, recognize marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples under state law.  Three states, Hawaii, Maine, and Washington, provide limited rights to gay and lesbian couples who enter into a domestic partnership or similar relationship.  Currently, no gay or lesbian couple receives any of the more than 1,100 federal rights and benefits available to married couples, and the New Mexico bill would not have provided any of these rights.

Couples would register with local county clerks and receive certificates attesting to their relationships. Partners would have to swear they are over 18 and not otherwise in a relationship.

They would be guaranteed access to each other in hospitals and be able to make medical decisions for partners who are unable to make those decisions themselves, and they would be granted other state benefits and rights accorded to partners in marriages.

A House version of the legislation is currently in the Consumer Public Affairs Committee.

Opponents of the bill call it an assault on traditional marriage. Supporters of the measure say it is about creating equality.

“This is simply about making sure that all loving, committed couples in New Mexico receive the equal rights that they and their families need and deserve,” said Joe Solmonese of the Washington DC-based Human Rights Campaign.

New Mexico’s legislature has considered similar legislation in each of the last two years, and the bill has, in the past, come within a single vote of passing.  New Mexico’s legislative session runs through March 21, 2009.

Gov. Bill Richardson supports the bill. A spokesperson for the governor said Richardson will be “visiting with legislators who don’t currently support the bill” in an effort to get them to change their minds.

In 2003, Richardson issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage.

Five other states – California, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont – as well as the District of Columbia have enacted domestic partner or civil unions laws that provide the same benefits under state law that would be provided by the Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act in New Mexico, if enacted.

Two states, Massachusetts and Connecticut, recognize marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples under state law.  Three states, Hawaii, Maine, and Washington, provide limited rights to gay and lesbian couples who enter into a domestic partnership or similar relationship.  Currently, no gay or lesbian couple receives any of the more than 1,100 federal rights and benefits available to married couples, and the New Mexico bill would not provide any of these rights.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 5-5 on the Domestic Rights and Responsibilities Act.  One member was absent, but legislation needs a majority to advance. The vote means the bill is virtually dead.

The only hopes of reviving it would be for a member of the committee to end their opposition and call for a new vote, or for the House to pass a similar bill and send it to the Senate.

Gov. Bill Richardson supports the bill. A spokesperson for the governor said Richardson will be “visiting with legislators who don’t currently support the bill” in an effort to get them to change their minds.

A House version of the legislation is currently in the Consumer Public Affairs Committee.

The legislation would create a statewide domestic partnership registry for both same and opposite-sex couples.

Couples would register with local county clerks and receive certificates attesting to their relationships. Partners would have to attest they are over the age of 18 and not otherwise in a relationship.

They would be guaranteed access to each other in hospitals and be able to make medical decisions for partners who are unable to make those decisions themselves, and they would be granted other state benefits and rights accorded to partners in marriages.

Equality New Mexico called the failure in the Senate a “a temporary setback.” Spokesperson Linda Siegle said it took 12 years, but lawmakers last year approved a bill banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment or housing.

The LGBT rights group has been pushing the partnership bill for the past three years.  Twice the measure has passed the House only to be blocked in the Senate.

In 2003, Richardson issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage.

State District Judge Eugenio Mathis on Monday placed the boys on house arrest, allowing them to leave under supervision only for school, work or to go to a community recreation center for two hours a day.

The former Robertson High School football team members, all 16 or 17, appeared in court Monday and denied the Children’s Court charges of criminal sexual penetration, kidnapping, conspiracy and other crimes.

A state police report included allegations of sodomy with a broomstick.

District Attorney Henry Valdez has filed a notice that he would seek adult punishment against the teens if they are convicted.

Juvenile sentencing could keep them in state custody until they were 21. Adult penalties could subject them to dozens of years in prison.

Head football coach Ray Woods and six assistants resigned in September amid allegations that coaches failed to adequately supervise the players or follow up on initial hazing allegations.

District Attorney Henry Valdez announced the Children’s Court charges Wednesday and said he would decide within 10 days whether to seek adult sanctions against the youths.

The charges stem from allegations of sexual assault on younger players by older players at the Robertson High School camp Aug. 11-14. A state police report said younger players were told to “take it like a man” and that their attackers ignored their pleas to stop.

The community is east of Santa Fe.

One football player was expelled and five others were suspended from school for the rest of the year. Those six were never publicly identified and it was not clear if they were the same six youths charged Wednesday.

Head football coach Ray Woods and six assistants resigned in September amid allegations that coaches had failed to adequately supervise the players or follow up on initial hazing allegations.

The football team had won the state championship twice in recent years, and the case shocked residents and turned student against student in Las Vegas, a town of 14,000.

One of the six youths charged, Santiago Armijo, told the Albuquerque Journal that he is innocent.

“I’m just hoping the real story comes out,” he said. “If there’s anything I could have done differently, I would have stopped it. But I didn’t do what they think I did.”

The school district, in its own investigation of the hazing, criticized coaches for calling all the players together and questioning them in front of their peers once the staff became aware of the alleged cases.

Fernando C de Baca’s resignation as GOP chairman in Bernalillo County was announced by state GOP Chairman Allen Weh, one of several top New Mexico Republicans who had called for him to step down.

“Mr. C de Baca has worked hard on behalf of the party, and his contributions should be appropriately recognized,” Weh said. “We are glad this matter has been resolved and wish him well.”

C de Baca, 70, was quoted in a BBC News blog last week as saying: “The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors. African-Americans came here as slaves. Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.”

C de Baca had maintained his comments were taken out of context, explaining he was referring to views held by some in the generation of Hispanics who grew up before the civil rights movement. “Those were not my beliefs,” he said Tuesday.

A spokesman for the BBC defended the report as accurate. Pressure on C de Baca to resign grew with the release of audio from a second BBC interview.

In that interview, he said older Hispanics would not support Obama “primarily because there is a strong feeling that African Americans during the civil rights movement took advantage, full advantage, of all the benefits and programs that the government offered, that were supposed to be offered to all minorities. But we were left behind, we were left sucking air, and we resented that ever since the ’60s, and I don’t see how a black president is going to change that.”

As recently as Wednesday, C de Baca had refused calls to resign.

“He does not speak for the majority of Hispanics in New Mexico,” said E. Lena Brown, NAACP chapter president in Albuquerque, which is part of Bernalillo County. “His comments were without merit and foundation. New Mexico is a multicultural state. Now I hope some of this stupidness will stop.”

The remarks drew widespread criticism from black leaders, Democrats and high-profile Republicans, including Sen. Pete Domenici.

C de Baca led the state’s health and social services agency in 1976-79 under a Democratic governor and served former President Ford as a White House assistant for Spanish-speaking affairs in the mid-1970s.

Weh had said in recent days that he has the authority to remove a county chairman under special circumstances but indicated his preference that the county party work to remedy the situation. Ryan Cangiolosi, treasurer of the county party, will take over as chairman.

Recent polls in New Mexico have shown Obama opening up a lead there over Republican nominee John McCain.