Nevada regents discussed taking an unprecedented step Friday that would extend system benefits to employees' domestic partners.

The proposal came before a regents committee about three years ago but has never hit the full board's agenda until Friday's regents meeting, higher education officials said.

Regents said they wanted a chance to view a more detailed plan and would revisit the matter in March for a possible vote.

"We wanted to just get a feel as to whether (the proposal) would get nailed right at the beginning," Chancellor Jim Rogers said.

He and the state's eight college and university presidents, as well as their faculty senates, support extending benefits available through the university system to same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

But they're going to have to convince several board members, who said they were uncomfortable setting a precedent in Nevada government by defining domestic partners.

"If we're extending these benefits, we're recognizing a new relationship, a different relationship, for which there is no precedent," Regent Michael Wixom said.

"We have to carefully investigate that, because we're dealing with the very relations that go to the heart of who we are as a society."

The proposal recommended regents require all employee-paid insurance program providers to offer participation to employees with domestic partners on the same basis as it does to employees with spouses.

It also calls for amending the sick leave policy to include eligibility for employees' domestic partners and their children, and waiving course fees for domestic partners and their children, as is done for spouses and children of employees.

Couples would swear under penalty of perjury that they are faithful and monogamous "life partners" who share a residence and are unmarried. The system also would develop a partnership certification and require notification when couples break up.

System officials estimated that it would cost 2 percent of the current benefits' expense, a figure Wixom said was drastically underestimated.

Domestic partners constitute 7.2 percent of all Nevada households: 6.5 percent of Nevada households consist of opposite-sex partners, and 0.7 percent consist of same-sex partners. That heterosexuals would be the major benefactor of the proposal disturbed a number of regents.

Regent Doug Hill said he supported providing same-sex domestic partners with board benefits because they don't have the option of marriage, but not heterosexual couples.

Regent James Leavitt questioned whether that would discourage couples from marrying.

"I'm not sure that should be the job of the university, creating incentives and disincentives for their faculty and staff either to choose to marry or not," said Gary Peck, head of the American Civil Liberties Union's Southern Nevada chapter.

Peck testified in favor of the proposal.

Regent Stavros Anthony asked how the system would differentiate between couples that stay together for several months and those who will forge a lifetime monogamous bond.

"How do you know when Britney Spears gets married at the Clark County Courthouse, she's not going to get divorced 24 hours later?" countered Dick Morgan, dean of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas law school.

The proposal before the board is merely a draft, Morgan said. But he said it aims to provide fairness to all employees. With more than 300 colleges offering similar benefits, he said it would allow the universities and colleges to remain competitive in faculty recruitment.

Richard Ziser, who helped get Question 2, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, passed in 2002, testified against the proposal on behalf of his organization, Nevada Concerned Citizens, which is lobbying the board on the matter.

Ziser warned regents that they would need to seek an opinion from the state attorney general on the legality of extending such benefits.

He noted that the state Legislature failed to enact a definition of domestic partners in 2001 and the Clark County Commission and Las Vegas City Council have declined to extend similar benefits.

"The public policy is very well established. There are many, many examples of lawsuits taking place all across the country challenging domestic partner benefits based on the definition of marriage," Ziser said.

But the board has the constitutional autonomy to govern matters within the system, said Jim Richardson, Nevada Faculty Alliance lobbyist.

Richardson said regents would not have to seek approval from any other entity to extend the benefits to domestic partners.

"We believe faithful, monogamous partners deserve these benefits," he said.

"Everyone wants all groups to be treated with respect," Leavitt said after the meeting.

"But I think everyone is also concerned about the constitutional definition of marriage."

It would help if the state had a definition for domestic partners, he said, questioning whether the board was the body to define that relationship. "Arguably, we're not."