SUING FOR COUNTRY CLUB STATUS: From the New York Times

One by one, barriers have been falling at the nation's elite country clubs. Many private clubs have dropped rules in recent decades that discriminated against potential members based on their race, religion, ethnicity or gender.

Now challenges are being raised against rules that are another obstacle to full membership rights at golf clubs. The hot topic at many clubs is one few members could have dreamed of talking about a decade ago: should the partners of gay members be given the privileges of family membership and greater access to the golf course?

In San Diego, Birgit Koebke and her partner, Kendall French, filed a lawsuit against Koebke's golf club in state court, contending that it discriminated against them because the club would not give French the access and the privileges granted to the spouses of heterosexual club members. While spouses can play golf free, French is permitted to play only with Koebke and only six times a year, and she must pay a $70 guest fee each time.

The case, the first of its kind in the country, is pending before the California Supreme Court.

In Atlanta, two gay members of a golf club filed complaints with the city's Human Relations Commission, making a similar claim. The commission ruled in their favor in January.

And in Massachusetts, the only state where gay marriage is legal, more than half the state's 160 private golf and country clubs are redefining their policies on marriage, according to Tom Landry, the executive director of the Massachusetts Golf Association. ...

Andrew Fortin, an executive with the National Club Association, a trade organization and lobbying group that represents about 1,000 of the nation's most prestigious private clubs, says that if a club adopts a policy for members' partners, it should apply to both same-sex and heterosexual couples.

"The only certainty,'' Fortin said, "is that the issue of significant others is no longer an exercise in accommodating member needs, but rather a complex and legal debate about spousal rights."

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