Gay rights bills move to floor of House.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - An Oregon House panel took the historic step Tuesday of sending to the floor bills that legally recognize domestic partnership for same-sex couples and ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Despite the emotionally charged debate in Oregon dating back to 2004 over gay marriage, the domestic-partnership proposal, House Bill 2007, cleared the House Elections, Ethics and Rules Committee without acrimony. The vote clears the way for consideration as early as next week by the full House. If approved by the Senate and signed into law as expected, it would let gays and lesbians legally establish the rights to many of the same benefits and responsibilities of married couples, including those of hospital visitation, inheritance and family laws, and shared insurance benefits.

Just as was the case in more than seven hours of testimony on the two bills Monday, Tuesday's committee work dwelled primarily on the anti-discrimination proposal, Senate Bill 2.

It bans discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation - expanding the state's anti-discrimination law that already prohibits such action based on race, religion, color, sex, marital status, national origin or age.

The hang-up on SB 2 dealt with its "religious exemption" provision, meant to uphold the rights of churches and other religious organizations to practice their beliefs, which may include the conviction that homosexuality is sinful.

After spending most of the day drafting new language, lawmakers brought out a version that, while deemed an improvement by critics of the original version, still fell short of winning their endorsement.

"Clearly the proponents of the bill have heard our concerns and they've done as much as they believe they can," said Nick Graham, spokesman for the Oregon Family Council. "But it's not enough."

Graham said his organization would have opposed SB 2 regardless whether it had prevailed in how the religious exemption was retooled.

Melissa Chernaik, spokeswoman for the gay rights organization Basic Rights Oregon, applauded lawmakers for going so far to address religious conservatives' concerns while maintaining the bill's larger goal of prohibiting discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people.

"We think a lot of this is protected already, but the committee wanted to make things more clear," she said. "We think they did a great job."

The committee also retooled House Bill 2007, which originally created "civil unions" for same-sex couples. It was amended with the term "domestic partnerships" where civil unions had appeared.

A legal adviser to the Legislature, Dave Heynderickx, said the rights, benefits and responsibilities to same-sex couples would not be altered by the wording change.

"There's not a lot of legal significance to that; it is simply terminology," he said.

Rep. Tina Kotek, a Portland Democrat and the only openly gay legislator, said she preferred the term domestic partnership, as do businesses and benefits administrators because it's more commonly used and understood.

Other changes made to the bill before the committee voted it out to the floor included adding provisions for how a domestic partnership could be dissolved and for the government's collection of fees when a domestic partnership is declared or ended.

The bill won the backing of all four Democrats and one Republican on the panel. Two other Republicans voted no, including Rep. Kim Thatcher of Keizer. She was unimpressed with the change from "civil unions" to "domestic partnerships," saying the legal arrangement between same-sex couples would be "marriage by another name" in either case.

Thatcher also said she opposed the bill because it did not offer "reciprocal benefits" to other adults who cannot marry but would want marriage-type benefits. These could be two elderly, widowed sisters or a mother and her unmarried adult son.

Despite the day's focus on parsing legal terminology, panel member and House Majority Leader Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone, said the historical significance of the day's action shouldn't be overlooked.

"It's been 30 years in coming and I think it's a very big accomplishment," he said, noting that the Legislature's first bill banning discrimination against gays came in the 1970s.

Check out David Steves' Capitol Notebook blog at www.registerguard.com/capnote. He can be reached at [phone] or [e-mail].