NYC Passes Landmark Domestic Partners Law

Unmarried couples including gays and lesbians in New York City will be treated the same as those who are married under landmark legislation passed Wednesday.

The law, one of the broadest domestic partners policies in the United States, addresses a host of emotional issues and details of everyday life facing couples regardless of their sexual orientation.

It allows bereavement leave for city employees, visitation rights in city-run facilities and tenancy succession rights and permits partners to be buried together in a city-owned cemetery. The estimated 8,700 registered domestic partners, about 55% of them heterosexual, in New York City will also be required to meet the same civic responsibilities as married couples.

The City Council approved the law on a 39-7 vote with one abstention to cheers and applause in the public gallery. Before the vote, a group of Hasidic rabbis gathered in protest outside City Hall, saying Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and city officials would be cursed for supporting the legislation.

“They are totally disregarding the clearly expressed wishes of the majority of decent, moral family people,” said William Handler, a rabbi representing Jews for Morality.

Gay rights activists said despite that protest and New York Roman Catholic Cardinal John O’Connor speaking out against the law, opposition to the measure had been limited.

“This reflects a broader recognition in society that all families and family structures, gay and straight, seniors, disabled should be respected and judged by the quality of love and support they provide and not what they think someone else’s relationship should be,” said Councilman Tom Duane, who is gay and helped lead efforts to pass the bill.

Responsibilities include disclosure of background information about domestic partners when seeking certain licenses in some businesses and the income of the chief wage earner in some city-subsidized housing.