The Michigan Supreme Court decreed Wednesday, May 7, that the 2004 court decision against gay marriage obstructs governments and universities in Michigan offering health insurance to gay workers’ partners.

The 5-2 rule hinders about 20 universities, community colleges, school districts and governments in Michigan, which used to cover more that 375 gay couples’ need of healthcare. These organizations need to reformulate their policies, as the decision imposes that domestic partnerships not be deemed suitable for medical care.

The law accepts only relationships between men and women as marriages. Conditions for other adults to be eligible for healthcare services are living together for a certain amount of time, not being married, sharing finances and being unrelated, as the Associated Press informs.

Bringing arguments for the normality of providing medical care to gay couples as well, Justice Stephen Markman pleads for the very obvious similarity between marriage and domestic partnership.

In contrast with him are Justices Michael Cavanagh and Marilyn Kelly, who assert domestic partnership is not similar to spousal relationship, since those living together without marrying before don’t enjoy the same benefits of wedlock (for instance, equal rights to property), as the Chicago Tribune notes.

"It is an odd notion to find that a union that shares only one of the hundreds of benefits that a marriage provides is a union similar to marriage," said Kelly, as cited by the AP. Despite the complexity of this controversy, gay rights advocates hope public employers will rewrite their policies so that gay couples will benefit from health care from now on too.