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Loading ...Nevada Senate passes partner bill
04.22.2009 11:57am EDT
(Carson City, Nevada) The Nevada Senate has approved a legislation that would allow same-sex couples to register as domestic partners and receive many of same rights as married couples have in the state.
The bill also would include opposite-sex couples who do not wish to marry.The measure still needs approval by the Assembly. But, even if it passes, Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) has threatened to veto it. The Senate’s 12 – 9 vote falls short of the 14 votes needed to override a veto.
“I just don’t believe in it,” Gibbons said of the bill last week.
Gibbons said he did not think voters agreed with the bill either and noted that in California voters approved a ballot question last November barring same-sex marriage.
Domestic partnerships are essentially the same thing, he said.
The bill, however, does not permit marriage, already barred in Nevada, although it does provide the same rights and obligations that married opposite-sex couples have under Nevada law.
The bill states domestic partners would have the “same rights, protections, benefits, responsibilities, obligations and duties” as traditionally married couples and be subject to the same divorce laws, such as those involving community property.
The bill also has been amended to state public sector employers would not be required to provide health care benefits to employees partners. It does not block similar benefits from being provided in the private sector.
It would allow same-sex couples to register their relationships with the secretary of state’s office.
The bill was written by Sen. David Parks, an openly gay Las Vegas Democrat.
An attempt by Republicans to add amendments to the legislation that would have virtually emasculated it were handily defeated.
Several dozen gays and lesbians were in the gallery as the Senate voted on the bill and let out cheers and applause when it passed.
Now that’s amusing, the governor of a state with legalized prostitution, brothels and gambling is lecturing LGBT people on morality. That’s like the Pope lecturing gay men about child molestation (and I don’t take moral instruction from men in dresses who rape children.)
Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) is really a moral authority on marriage. Look at the horrible example he has. He is in the process of divorce with his soon to be ex-wife. She is divorcing him because he had a string of extramarital affairs and sex adventures. He admitting sending over 600 text messages to a women in one month that was charged to the state. He countered that he later paid for the messaging fees. What a moralist!
Another Republican jackass governor getting in the way of gay marriage. Glad to hear that Gavin Newsom is running for Governor in CA. Sad that an override veto in Nevada isn’t quite there yet.
Awesome news however, it will NOT offer FEDERAL RIGHTS if passed.
Not surprisingly many Mormons live in Nevada and Gibbons is one of them. Nevada used to be more tolerant than now — there’s hundreds of thousands of retirees, including lots of vets.
We need to get two more people on our side. Nevada gays, show them what you’re made of!!
That governor is the definition of bigotry, hate, hypocrisy, and retardation. It’s not even a gay marriage bill! It’s a domestic partnership that allows gays to have the same rights. He’s basically saying he hates gays and doesn’t want them to have equal rights. The hypocrisy really shows that he’s trying to pretend like he knows morals when he is in the process of divorcing and has cheated on his wife, in a state that has legalized gambling and prostitution. Backwards person and backwards state ftl. It’s a matter of time bigots, it’s a matter of time, before you disappear like the racists. And yes, all homophobes are exactly like the racists of the 1960’s, the slaveholders of the past, the people who told women they shouldn’t be allowed to vote.