On Jan. 1, Arizona will cut off health-care benefits to about 600 heterosexual, unmarried domestic partners of state employees.

Gov. Jan Brewer and the Legislature made the benefit change as part of budget cuts in 2009. They intended to eliminate benefits for a much broader group, including adult children and gay partners of state employees.

However, the new federal health-care law and a court ruling have forced the state to continue covering those groups, leaving opposite-sex partners the only class impacted by the cuts.

"The good news is that gay couples and adult kids will be OK," said Sen.-elect Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic state representative during the 2009 vote and one of those who helped with the court battle against the state. "The bad news is unmarried straight people are getting screwed."

The state is appealing the court ruling, and if it succeeds, the 408 same-sex partners of state employees also will lose benefits.

State officials have said eliminating benefits for all domestic partners would save about $5 million of the $625 million Arizona spends on employee benefits.

Lawmakers say they had different reasons for making the change - some budget-related, some not.

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said for him it was a little of both.

"It's my belief that the state should not sanction heterosexual or homosexual relationships out of marriage," he said. "It's morally wrong, costly to the state and prone to abuse."

Few states offer benefits for same-sex domestic partners, and fewer offer it for unmarried opposite-sex partners. The federal government does neither.

Arizona history

The law eliminating domestic-partner benefits overturned a 2008 executive order signed by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

Brewer, a Republican, worked with the GOP-led Legislature to make the change.

When passed, the law restricted eligibility to a state employee's "spouse, a child under the age of 19, or a child under the age of 23 who is a full-time student."

The law essentially eliminated coverage for:

- Gay domestic partners.

- Heterosexual domestic partners.

- Adult children ages 18 to 22 who are not full-time students, including disabled adult dependents.

- Any adult children over age 22.

"We give insurance to employees, their children and their legal spouses," Kavanagh said. "If you're not in one of those categories, then you shouldn't get the state benefit."

Sen.-elect John McComish, R-Phoenix, who at the time of the 2009 vote was the House majority leader, said the elimination of benefits for adult children was an unintended consequence of the effort to eliminate coverage of domestic partners.

"We did not mean to exclude some of the kids," he said.

Adult children

The portion of the law eliminating coverage for several categories of adult children of state employees became moot with the passage of the new federal health-care law.

The Affordable Care Act requires states to cover all adult dependents younger than 26, regardless of their financial dependency, residency with parent, student status or marital status.

The only exemption allowed is if the dependent is eligible for health coverage through his or her own employer.

Gay partners

In November 2009, Lambda Legal, a New York-based advocacy group, filed a lawsuit on behalf of 10 state employees alleging that the change in benefits was more about taking services away from gay and lesbian employees than a budget-savings measure.

"This was a policy matter," Sinema said. "This was about them wanting to take health care away from people."

McComish said it was both.

"We weren't sure we should be covering domestic partners, and we were in a tight budget crunch," he said.

In court documents, the state said it was a budget decision.

"The Legislature could reasonably conclude that in a time of budget scarcity, the limited funds could be better spent in providing health-care benefits to married persons rather than to unmarried ones," a court document filed by the state said.

"Arizona sought only to return to the same position as the federal government and the majority of states in ending the domestic partner optional benefit for budget reasons."

Most states don't offer same-sex domestic-partner benefits. Those that do are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

A few Arizona cities offer benefits for same-sex partners, including Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson and Scottsdale.

The practice is more common among private businesses.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based gay-rights organization, 57 percent of Fortune 500 companies offered same-sex domestic-partner benefits in 2009.

In July, U.S. District Judge John Sedwick granted a temporary injunction in the Arizona lawsuit that prevented the state from cutting benefits to same-sex partners.

In his ruling, Sedwick said the law violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution because same-sex couples, who are unable to get married under Arizona law, do not have equal access to employee benefits.

The state is appealing the ruling. No hearing date has yet been set by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Heterosexual couples

The court did not consider whether removing benefits from straight couples violated their rights, primarily because the plaintiffs didn't ask it to. Sinema said she worked with the plaintiffs and advocated for them to include straight partners, but they declined.

"Their reasoning was that there is a remedy to the issue for unmarried straight people: They can get married," she said.

"But I think if someone had filed a lawsuit for the straight, unmarried partners, they would have won. The law now clearly treats them differently because of their status."

Few states offer benefits for opposite-sex domestic partners. Those that do are California, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, according to Unmarried America, a California-based advocacy group.

Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale benefits extend to opposite-sex partners, but Tucson's do not.

Unmarried America reported that the majority of those Fortune 500 companies that offer same-sex domestic benefits do not extend benefits to opposite-sex partners.

Arizona has notified the 612 state employees whose opposite-sex partner will be impacted by the benefit change.

Alan Ecker, an Arizona Department of Administration spokesman, said the state has offered them an opportunity to pay for a COBRA-like extension program to maintain service through the end of June.

Ecker said 54 of the 612 losing service have signed up for that.