I understand the Tanner ruling requires that health insurance and other employer sponsored benefits be provided equitably to all State Employees and their spouses (of any gender). Does it cover pension benefits?

That said, Oregon's State Constitution prohibits same sex marriage. If you accept that premise, doesn't it follow that same sex divorce would also be prohibited?

If an employer sponsored pension plan is only available to legally married couples, it seems logical that the division of pension assets would only be available to legally married couples.

If the constitutionality of Oregon's marriage statute is not the subject of this lawsuit, how can you assert a right to divorce?

If gay couples are proscribed from getting married, it seems logical they can't be divorced. If the division of pension assets is predicated on divorce, then the State is not discriminating against homosexual couples any more than they are discriminating against heterosexual couples that are unable to divorce.

To put it another way: more than 50% of all marriages end in divorce. If you assume the average person has 10 sex partners (and fewer than 2 marriages), it follows that 80% to 90% of all "couples" never got married. Should the State be obligated to divide pension benefits amongst all the heterosexual unions that each straight employee enters into during their employment?

Is the division of pension assets really an employer sponsored benefit, or mere compliance with the divorce court's decrees?