SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Legislation to grant same-sex partners about a dozen rights available only to married couples narrowly passed the California Assembly Wednesday after more than two hours of emotional debate.
The measure, Assemblymember Carole Migden's AB 25, would expand the state's domestic-partnership program -- which currently offers few tangible benefits -- to provide same-sex couples various employment, health care and estate planning rights.Opponents in recent months have criticized the bill as an attack on marriage. They conducted an extensive advertising campaign and vowed retribution against legislators supporting the gay and lesbian equality measure.
But Assembly supporters Wednesday hailed AB 25 as a step toward eliminating the last bastion of institutionalized discrimination, noting that laws once restricted the rights of women and minority groups.
The gay equality measure passed the Assembly on a 43-29 vote, with no Republicans supporting it and only two Democrats opposed. The bill now moves to the state Senate.
Under AB 25, same-sex couples would have more health-insurance options and could file a wrongful-death suit, serve as conservators, make medical treatment decisions and use sick leave to care for their partners.
Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, who is gay, said she experienced discrimination firsthand when she discovered while lying in a hospital bed preparing for surgery that her partner could not make medical decisions should something go wrong.
Urging support for AB 25, Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, asked how it can be considered just and moral that she and her partner -- after 22 years of a committed relationship -- are not entitled to basic rights given to non-gay couples who are on their "14th marriage."
Assemblyman Jay LaSuer, R-La Mesa, argued that approving the legislation would be violating the will of voters, who rejected gay marriage last year by passing Proposition 22.
Several opponents of AB 25 cited religious or personal convictions that homosexuality is wrong or immoral.
The bill's author, Migden, D-San Francisco, said legislators should not be driven solely by religious doctrine.
"We purposely created separation of church and state so we could all be humanists," she said.
While marriage grants more than a thousand rights and responsibilities, AB 25 seeks only about a dozen of the most basic ones, supporters said.
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