In this lecture, Gilia C. Smith examines university employees' access to public health benefits in the state of Michigan, following the 2004 passage of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Proposition 02-04 was interpreted by Michigan courts to mean that under traditional eligibility schemes, public employers could no longer offer health benefits to the same-sex domestic partners (or the children of same-sex domestic partners) of employees. How Michigan's research universities responded to this change in public policy illustrates the complex array of moral and strategic concerns undergirding the issue of health benefits for gay and lesbian faculty and staff. This multiple case study is derived from an institutional logics methodology. Drawing from a multitude of sources, including interviews, secondary data collection and document analysis, it reveals four contested logics at work behind institutional decision-making. The recognition that LGBTQ faculty and staff are essential to institutional competitiveness and recruitment initiatives emerges as an important consideration. Against the backdrop of retrenchment and fiscal austerity particular to public higher education, cost containment plays a variable role, first as a material and later as a cultural consideration. These findings, and others, provide insight into the implications of the broader fight over the institution of marriage and the movement for gay civil rights for public higher education. Elaborating upon this empirical platform, Smith develops a new rubric for evaluating the fairness of work-family policy in higher education.