Bill on domestic partners debated

CARSON CITY — More emotional testimony was given Friday on a plan that would give domestic partners, gay or straight, rights and benefits that Nevada offers to married couples.

No vote was taken after an Assembly panel hearing on a Senate-passed bill. After the three-hour hearing, Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, said he would act on Senate Bill 283 during a workshop meeting next week.

The bill, which passed the Senate 12-9, must pass out of the Assembly committee by Friday, or it is dead.

Gov. Jim Gibbons, however, has said he will veto the bill if it clears the house. It would take a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature to override his veto.

At the Friday hearing, Assemblywoman Ellen Spiegel, D-Henderson, revealed how she benefited from a domestic partnership when she lived in Santa Monica, Calif.

Spiegel said she lived with a man for 10 years who suddenly died at age 40 of a heart attack. Police who came to their home asked her to leave because she was not married and the lease was not in her name.

“Immediately I was thrown into the street.”

Based on that experience, she secured a domestic partnership with her fiancé years later so she could move into his apartment just before their marriage. The landlord would not permit unmarried couples to live together.

“Domestic partnerships are not just for the gay community,” Spiegel said.

Under Senate Bill 283, any couple could go to the secretary of state’s office, pay a fee and receive a one-page domestic partnership contract that gives them the same rights and responsibilities as married couples.

The bill contains a clause which stipulates their relationship is a not a marriage as defined by the Protection of Marriage amendment passed by voters in 2002. That amendment specifies a marriage is between a man and a woman.

Richard Ziser and Janine Hansen, leaders of the drive to put that amendment in the constitution, testified the bill is an attempt to circumvent that amendment.

Sen. David Parks released an opinion from legislative lawyers that it does not. Parks, D-Las Vegas, is the bill’s sponsor and the only openly gay member of the Legislature.

He proposed amendments that say neither private companies nor governments must offer health care benefits to domestic partners of employees. But Parks testified 81 of the 100 largest companies already do.

Another amendment specifies a domestic partnership does not require “any solemnization ceremony.”

These changes clearly were designed to appeal to social conservatives. Hansen said she liked the changes but still does not support the bill.

Ziser even said he may need to begin another petition drive to amend the state constitution and outlaw domestic partnerships and civil unions.

Ziser added that gay couples already have legal remedies they can use to secure will, estate, child support and other rights of married couples.

Reno family practice lawyer Kimberly Surratte said same-sex couples must go through hoops to secure contracts to protect their joint rights.

“It is very costly and expensive for them,” she added.

In one instance, she said, a gay couple spent $60,000 to execute legal agreements that gave them the same rights as heterosexual couples.