A few weeks ago, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents rather quietly announced that they would propose offering health care to the domestic partners of university system employees. This move would allow gay partners of employees in the university system to receive the same medical benefits as married ones do for their spouses.

It’s about time.

Wisconsin is the last school in the Big Ten to offer this benefit. Many large businesses in this state offer it to their employees, including Miller Brewing Company, Lands End and General Motors.

According to gay rights activists, the number of employees even taking up this offer in the Big Ten system is around 1 percent.

Yet it’s all too much for Rep. John Gard. The right-wing noisemaker from Peshtigo thinks students are getting a “raw deal,” (his words, not mine) from this move. He also accused the Board of Regents of trying to slip this one by the public by announcing it Election Day.

Of course, he’s not really speaking for us, is he?

According to the Pew Charitable Trust, a survey of 18-24 year olds found that 85 percent of us supported equal treatment in housing and employment. Instead of Gard’s raw deal, it seems we support what Teddy Roosevelt used to call a square deal. The great majority of people our age simply have no reason to think offering health care benefits to gay partners is inappropriate.

Only people trying to score points with a loud minority of voters on a meaningless moral issue would make a fuss over such a logical offer.

It’s just fair to treat the domestic partners of gay employees the same. It’s that fairness that drives many conservatives crazy.

As gay rights are becoming mainstream in culture and society, conservatives lose the ability to paint a homosexual lifestyle as that which is other. One of the main tenets for conservative Christians is that homosexuality will doom you to a life less fulfilling than following in the footsteps of Christ. That argument is easier to make when you can scare your gay child with stories of unemployment, discrimination and hatred based upon your “choice” of sexual preference.

That argument falls apart when gays have the same health care benefits, right to rent and right to organize their lifestyle as they choose, just as straight people do.

Let’s be honest: liberals will not win the gay marriage issue. That’s because we’re playing the game with conservatives by even calling it that. We need to change the game in order to win it, and the solution is clear.

There are homosexuals who would like to have the appellation “marriage” affixed to the ceremony they go through in front of a church official of some kind.

But it’s the legal standing you have before the courts, the government and your fellow citizens where marriage actually becomes important. Whatever your take on gay marriage, if you are fundamentally against gay couples having the same rights as straight ones, then there is one simple reason: you’re prejudiced.

If, however, you believe that gay couples should pay taxes like the rest of us, get to have the same arguments about child support and custody like feuding straight couples and be recognized by our legal system as the same sort of unit as a straight couple, then the term “marriage” is simply a cultural fight, not a legal one.

By giving gay couples the rights of straight ones and without passing laws that explicitly allow gay “marriage,” you pull the rug out from under cultural conservatives.

Gay rights, like the fundamental drive toward equality itself, are simply going to happen as more and more people in this country know and respect gay couples. It’s hard to hate your neighbors when they walk, talk and act just like you do, except in the bedroom. And most of us don’t really know what’s going in our neighbor’s bedroom anyway. (Well some of you do, but you can get in trouble for that, so I suggest you cut it out before the restraining order hits.)

Rep. Gard has to bring this up because the more gay rights get embedded the harder it is to dig them out.

It’s a losing fight, and I hope Rep. Gard has a sturdy shovel because he’ll be digging a long time.

Rob Deters ([email protected]) is a third-year law student.