The Arizona state Legislature is full of hot air. In one breath, it promises the students of the state's university system a more diverse, world-wise education, and in the next claims that supplying the incentives needed to ensure that education - namely, same-sex partner benefits for UA faculty and staff - is impossible.

The UA and its counterpart in Tempe are now the only Pac-10 schools not to offer such benefits, and many current and potential faculty members are taking note.

The Legislature - which has the ultimate authority when it comes to such state-sponsored programs - claims that the decision to grant them to GLBT members of the UA community is out of its hands - that the decision must be supported by a redefinition of "dependent" by the state Attorney General.

However, if that were the only obstacle such a proposition faced, it would have long ago become a prominent issue for the state government. Instead, the topic has stayed underground for the last half decade, waiting for legislative action that may never come.

The real problem with the proposal isn't one of jurisdiction or conflict between political branches; it is the backward and prejudiced attitudes of the stagnant retirees that sit on the state Legislature.

When the Legislature speaks of diversity, it speaks - reluctantly - of racial diversity, something no self-preserving politician would disavow. But when it comes to real diversity, the kind necessary to create an institution filled with intelligent professors and students, state politicians want none of it.

If we need an illustration of how feasible state-sponsored partner benefits really are, we need only look to California, Oregon and Washington. We can look to the same states to find our talented former faculty members as they flee a system that manifests disrespect for its most invaluable participants.

If the state Legislature wants to convince students that they are more than cogs in a well-oiled financial machine and convince professors that their lives, thoughts and, yes, choices, are in fact significant, it can do no worse than it is doing now.

It's time to rid our state legislation of the flagrant, sickening discrimination that has turned Arizona into a hostile environment for GLBT faculty and students. Perhaps the members of the Legislature would better understand the problem if it were put in terms they can relate to: If you keep heaping hay on your wagon, pretty soon your best mules will head for greener pastures.