A conservative legal group has filed suit against Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson over his executive order extending benefits to the non-married domestic partners of city employees.

The Arizona-base Alliance Defense Fund, which takes legal stands on right-to-life issues, pro-family cases and religious liberty questions, filed suit Thursday on behalf of three Salt Lake residents who oppose Anderson's order. The suit seeks to overturn the order Anderson signed last week, with about a dozen members of the city's gay and lesbian community looking on, to extend health insurance coverage to the partners of unmarried city employees.

One plaintiff said Anderson's order offends her view of marriage between a man and a woman, calling it "just plain unbiblical."

The suit is based on both Utah's Defense of Marriage Act and the Utah Constitution. Alliance attorneys say Anderson's order offers homosexual couples and unmarried heterosexual couples equivalent legal status to traditional marriage.

"Utah law prohibits relationships that masquerade as marriage," ADF attorney Dale Schowengerdt said in a statement. "The mayor's action blatantly disregards state law."

Utah's Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the state or any local governments from enacting "any law creating any legal status, rights, benefits or duties that are substantially equivalent to those provided under Utah law to a man and a woman because they are married."

The state Constitution prohibits marriage between people of the same sex and states, "No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect."

Schowengerdt maintained the law is clear. "The state's Defense of Marriage Act and the Utah Constitution clearly prohibit Mayor Anderson from creating this type of order. He has flagrantly made clear his desire to create a special class for 'domestic partners' nonetheless."

Anderson said he doesn't mind the suit.

"I certainly welcome someone to intervene if they could provide good advocacy or could help the court make an expeditious decision in the matter," he said.

The issue is already before the 3rd District Court. The city's benefits administrator — the Public Employees Health Program (PEHP) — filed a court action earlier this week asking a judge to rule on whether Anderson's order is legal under Utah law.

PEHP officials said they won't administer the benefits until they get a court order saying its legal. It's possible that Thursday's suit and the PEHP filing could be combined into one legal action by a judge.

In the meantime three City Council members — Jill Remington Love, Dave Buhler and Eric Jergensen — are working on an ordinance that would replace Anderson's order. The order would offer benefits to the group Anderson included in his order but would also include a wider variety of dependants such as siblings, adult children of employees and their parents, among others.

State lawmakers who have opposed Anderson's order have said the council's broader approach to benefits expansion is a better fit constitutionally.

Anderson, however, believes the council's proposal not only dilutes his message on gay rights but would cost too much.

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