UPDATE: The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to send the domestic partnership bill on to the full senate. Only Senator Beyer opposed.

The domestic partnership bill, HB 2007, is up in senate committee this afternoon.

Before testimony, committee vice-chair Senator Roger Beyer (R-Mollala) has a beef:

“[This bill] seems to amend everything without mentioning anything,” Sen. Beyer commented, indicating that the bill—which grants all of the same rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples, but calls it domestic partnerships—is vague.

I think the language is pretty damn clear, even if it doesn’t list all 500 rights it will grant:

Provides that any privilege, immunity, right or benefit granted by law to individual who is or was married is granted to individual who is or was in a domestic partnership. Provides that any responsibility imposed by law on individual who is or was married is imposed on individual who is or was in a domestic partnership.

Expect more nit-picking from Beyer later. But first, members of the governor’s Task Force on Equality are up, to explain why they recommended the bill in the first place. Dan Bryant, Senior Minister of First Christian Church in Eugene, and the President of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, is giving a great speech on how we’re all made in god’s image, sexual identity and all—so granting these benefits is the right and Christian thing to do.

“I urge you to grant domestic partnership to the thousands of couples in our state for whom something is everything,” Bryant concluded.

Updates after the cut!

(It's easier to stack updates at the top—so the oldest stuff's at the bottom, newest at the top, not counting the intro above.)

2:56pm—Sen. Ginny Burdick closes the public testimony, and asks for a motion to consider, which would forward the bill to the senate. Walker did so, with a do-pass recommendation.

Sen. Beyer wants a fiscal statement. Of course he does. Burdick says "it's my understanding there wasn't a fiscal impact."

VOTE: Everyone but Beyer voted for it (that's Burdick, Berger, and Prozanski. Kruse was excused.)

2:49pm—Bonnie Tinker, of Love Makes a Family Inc, is here to speak neutrally on the bill! "If we must bear the indignity of domestic partnerships, at least open it up to all couples," Tinker urged. "I know at least three heterosexual couples who have not married in Oregon because they don't want to accept special rights not available to same-sex couples."

"Please amend HB 2007 to remove discrimination based on sex," she added. "And once you pass this bill, please work to overturn [Measure 36]."

2:38pm—"We introduce ourselves in relation to our families no matter which side of this issue we're on," says one woman in support of the bill, after she introduced her partner and their two children. (One of those two kids, the nine month old, is on his mom Katie's shoulder—next to OFC's Nick Graham, and practically drooling on his shoulder.) These are the two women who married in Portland during that short time it was allowed—on the way to the hospital, as Katie was in labor with their son.

Another woman spoke up about she and her partner, and their panic during medical complications when her partner was in labor—she had to frantically locate their powers of attorney documents.

That actually raises a question for me—several couples here have spoken of legal documents that they tote around, in case they need to prove that they can make decisions for each other. Will that really change if domestic partnerships become legal? One cultural power of marriage is a husband or wife's ability to declare that they're someone's spouse, and people don't question it. Will same-sex couples get the same respect? Or will we be forced to tote around our domestic partnership paperwork, instead of those powers of attorney?

2:31pm—Aisling Coghlin, interim executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, is speaking in favor of the bill. She also pointed out that groups like the Oregon Family Council, back during the Measure 36 campaign, did not campaign against civil unions or domestic partnerships. Burdick thanked her for pointing that out, and said she thinks it's because of the fact that they didn't oppose those rights "that they got as many votes as they did."

2:26pm—Two women—both nurses—came up to talk about their relationship. "We're late bloomers. We came to find out that we're lesbians in the second half of our lives," said one of the two (they appear to be in their 50s). Her partner pointed out that when she was married to a man, she had all sorts of rights that she lost, simply because "of who I love."

Because they're older, they've got things like retirement, funeral arrangements, hospitalizations on their minds—things they'd like to be empowered to make decisions for each other on.

2:24pm—Burdick invited Sam Adams up to testify. "I just wanted to stop by and thank you for your consideration of this legislation. It's important to tens of thousands of Oregonians," especially those that don't enjoy local legislation—as in Portland—that offers some protections. "This bill you're considering today isn't something that local jurisdictions have any purview over, and I wanted to thank you. It means a lot."

2:21pm—an opponent named Alex (Vesly?) doesn't them want them to pass a law that has "no basis in morality." The legislators can't "pass a law that is immoral."

Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams just popped in—I'm guessing he's in Salem today for "City Hall Day."

2:11pm—a "wife, mother, Catholic" from Salem says "homosexuality is a high risk activity" and "a choice." She just busted out the "high correlation between child molestation and homosexuality" bullshit. The crowd groaned. "The life expectancy of homosexuals is 43 years, due to increase risk of... anal cancer, gonorrhea, gastro-intestinal cancer," she claims. Um... I don't recall her listing a medical credential, but this "report" she's reading MUST be accurate. (Props to Sen. Ginny Burdick for cutting her off!)

Sen. Floyd Prozanski: "You've made some amazing statements." As a former prosecutor, he busted plenty of child molesters—not a single one gay. He wants documentation of the lady's wild claims.

Sen. Vicki Berger—"I sat here very patiently, but I was quite frankly shocked by some of the statements made here today. Out of the seven men who sexually abused me, not a single one was gay, as I've said before."

2:05pm—Two guys from Eugene, together for 11 years, are here to speak in support of the bill. They're adopting two kids later this year, and this bill means they'll both be recognized as parents. One of the men, Gus, a school principal, says granting these rights paves the way for gay and lesbian youth to live better lives, as they'll see examples of healthy, loving relationships, and will be spared (hopefully) the self esteem beat down that is a state debating whether or not you're worthy of equal rights.

As to whether this bill is just "marriage by another name," the other man, Todd, points out that "the vast majority of marriage rights are conferred by the federal government."

2:01pm—PGE, like Nike, hearts the gays and wants them to be treated equally. (An aside: I get why these corporate stamps of approval are important to win wide support for bills like this, but lawd, human resource-y speeches are dull. Appreciated, but dull.)

1:55pm—time for two opponents. Charles Felton, ordinary citizen, who "until recently has been proud to be an Oregonian." HB 2007 is part of an "Oregon trail of bad bills."

Another woman, Aisling (didn't catch her last name), opposes the bill. She's not opposed to "the mother who is here with her child, getting benefits." She's here because she thought Oregonian's "already voted on this issue." What she, her family, and "the Bible believes is not being represented." She wants a statewide vote on this bill. (Remember, a poll's already been done, which resulted in this bill morphing from "civil unions" to "domestic partnerships" to better survive a challenge—civil unions, in a vote, would nab 41% of voters against it, while DPs would only garner 20-some percent opposition. So Aisling—it's like you already voted!)

1:49pm—Reps from Nike are up to testify. Oregon's only Fortune 500 company.... supports diversity... good for employees, good for business...domestic partnerships compliments the anti-discrimination bill..."further enhance our ability to attract top talent"... etc etc etc.

Randy Lyons, Senior Project Manager for Global Information Technology at Nike—and head of the company's gay employee group—urges the senators to "make Oregon safe and welcoming for all of its residents."

1:41pm—a panel of bill proponents are up. Kelly Burke—toting her 1-year-old baby, whom she's raising (along with a son) with her partner Delores—to talk about how their "ability to take care of each other is very vulnerable." A few days after their son was born, Kelly had to rush to the hospital with post-birth complications; She realized on the way that should she die, her partner's second-parent adoption hadn't gone through yet, and their son would legally be an orphan.

They ran into medical issues again when Delores was recently fighting breast cancer; Speaking with a nurse on the phone when Delores was having trouble breathing, the nurse told Kelly she could only speak to Delores, despite notes all over her medical chart that Kelly had medical power of attorney.

"I need your support, leadership and courage to protect families like ours," Burke concluded.

1:31pm—the Oregon Family Council's Nick Graham is up to rail against the bill. As if on cue, a gay couple's baby—playing in the back row—babbled "uh oh uh oh!" The crowd—which is mostly bill supporters—giggled.

"Oregon Family Council is opposed to HB 2007," Graham says. He concedes that the way 2007 is written seems to align constitutionally with Measure 36, the constitutional amendment against marriage his group campaigned for. But domestic partnerships are still too close to marriage for OFC. Graham would rather see the reciprocal benefits bill pass (offering some benefits currently reserved for marriage couples to anyone; however, that bill only grants about 300 of the 500 rights).

This bill extends "to gay and lesbian families only. Why not grant benefits to any two people who cannot legally marry, like two dependent sisters?" Graham suggested. Graham echoed Beyer's earlier "too vague" comments, too, saying that this is "a bill we don't ultimately know the outcome of."

Except that he does! While researching reciprocal benefits, his group found over 400 mentions of marriage or spousal benefits in state law, and they picked through those to decide which ones should apply more widely in the reciprocal bill, skipping ones like "the 80 or so that deal with federal law" and those regarding divorce or family law. But guess what Graham? Divorce benefits are just as important as partnership benefits—the ability to equitably end a relationship is important.

1:30pm—The committee's discussing tax benefits under domestic partnerships—the law would grant the same tax benefits and responsibilities for state taxes that married couples have, but same-sex couples would still have to file their federal taxes separately (and probably pay more). "What a shame," Sen. Vicki Berger commented.