SACRAMENTO - Companies that do not provide domestic partner benefits would be prohibited from doing business with the state under legislation quietly moving through the state Senate.
It would make California the first state to mandate that private sector contractors provide partner benefits for gay and lesbian employees. Five California local governments, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, already use a similar policy.
The bill, AB1080, is scheduled for a hearing Monday in the Senate Appropriations Committee, marking the latest battleground for the Legislature's continuing debate over domestic partnership.
Assemblywoman Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, the bill's author, called the move an extension of a 1999 state law that extended domestic partner benefits to state employees and created a state registry.
"This is more or less a clean-up measure that would extend to companies who do business with the state of California," Kehoe said. "We're saying that domestic partner employees should receive equal benefits ..."
But for some groups, AB1080 is hardly a "clean-up" action.
It has drawn fire from religious groups, who argue it would force faith-based organizations to choose between their beliefs and their livelihood.
Catholic health providers, such as Mercy hospitals, might not be able to treat Medi-Cal patients, said Robert Teegarden, director of education for the California Catholic Conference.
"We cannot liken gay lifestyles as being one and the same with marriage," Teegarden said. "So people who have been partners with the state for years, providing social services, would be put in a position of either violating their own beliefs or no longer contracting with the state."
The Catholic Conference is seeking a religious exemption in AB1080. Teegarden said that besides health care, programs ranging from Meals on Wheels to homeless services would be threatened by the proposal.
Kehoe disputed those claims.
"I think the opposition may be trying to paint a worst-case scenario." But she conceded that companies might face tough decisions.
"It's an equity issue," she said. "If Catholic Charities of California has employees with domestic partners, I think they should be compensated on par with married employees. I think that's only fair."
San Francisco in 1997 became the first government to require private contractors to offer domestic partner benefits.
At the time, there were about 500 U.S. companies offering such benefits, said Cynthia Goldstein, who for five years has implemented the policy as San Francisco equal benefits program manager. The Washington-based Human Rights Campaign estimates there are now more than 4,400 companies that do so.
"There was certainly a good bit of start-up work to do -- we had to create a whole implementation scheme, as far as what we would require from contractors and how we would verify compliance," Goldstein said. "But we've done most of that, so if the state were to take this on, the road's already been paved."
Los Angeles, Berkeley and Oakland, as well as San Mateo County and Seattle have followed San Francisco.
But gay and lesbian activists say California's passage of AB1080 would be the big prize. The state has an estimated 22,000 contractors, said Department of General Services spokesman Robb Deignan.
"Given the scope of California, I think the impact could be huge," said Geoffrey Kors, executive director for the California Alliance for Pride and Equality.
"Discrimination in benefits is no different from discrimination in employment," he added. "When there are two employees and one gets 30 percent more pay in benefits, then that's blatant discrimination. It's unconscionable for any tax dollars to be going toward benefits for spousal employees when other employees are denied those same benefits."
The California Chamber of Commerce has joined religious groups in fighting AB1080, fearing that the measure will increase costs for a number of small- and medium-sized businesses. Spokesman Dominic DiMare said those companies would be placed at a competitive disadvantage for state contracts because they are less able to afford extra benefits.
"This brings in a new class of benefits at a time when a tremendous amount of costs out there are increasing," DiMare said.
Michael Mears, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute, said AB1080 is an attempt to "redefine marriage" in the wake of a 2000 voter-approved initiative that limited marriage to heterosexual couples.
Goldstein said compliance does not require a company to forgo its belief system. A number of faith-based groups raised initial concerns in San Francisco, but only one -- The Salvation Army -- stopped contracting with the city.
Many organizations, including Catholic Charities in San Francisco, allowed employees to select one resident adult for benefits purposes, rather than specifying that it be a domestic partner, Goldstein said.
But Teegarden was skeptical.
"It really comes down to an irreconcilable moral dispute between two groups in society," he said. "One believes that homosexual activity is good and viable and the other does not."