(Santa Fe, New Mexico) Legislation would create a statewide domestic partnership registry for both same and opposite-sex couples has passed a key committee and is heading for a vote in the full state senate.

They would be guaranteed access to each other in hospitals and be able to make medical decisions for partners who are unable to make those decisions themselves, and they would be granted other state benefits and rights accorded to partners in marriages.

A House version of the legislation is currently in the Consumer Public Affairs Committee.

Opponents of the bill call it an assault on traditional marriage. Supporters of the measure say it is about creating equality.

“This is simply about making sure that all loving, committed couples in New Mexico receive the equal rights that they and their families need and deserve,” said Joe Solmonese of the Washington DC-based Human Rights Campaign.

New Mexico’s legislature has considered similar legislation in each of the last two years, and the bill has, in the past, come within a single vote of passing.  New Mexico’s legislative session runs through March 21, 2009.

Gov. Bill Richardson supports the bill. A spokesperson for the governor said Richardson will be “visiting with legislators who don’t currently support the bill” in an effort to get them to change their minds.

In 2003, Richardson issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage.

Five other states – California, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont – as well as the District of Columbia have enacted domestic partner or civil unions laws that provide the same benefits under state law that would be provided by the Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act in New Mexico, if enacted.

Two states, Massachusetts and Connecticut, recognize marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples under state law.  Three states, Hawaii, Maine, and Washington, provide limited rights to gay and lesbian couples who enter into a domestic partnership or similar relationship.  Currently, no gay or lesbian couple receives any of the more than 1,100 federal rights and benefits available to married couples, and the New Mexico bill would not provide any of these rights.