California Assembly Passes Landmark Relationship Recognition Bills.

SAME-sex marriage laws; SAME-sex marriage; EMPLOYMENT discrimination; UNMARRIED couples

CALIFORNIAReport Available; UNITED StatesReport Available

Beginning LGBT Pride Month with a big bang, Equality California formerly CAPE celebrated two major victories in the California State Assembly on June 4, 2003 with the passage of two groundbreaking relationship recognition bills, AB 205 and AB 17. AB 205 would grant same-sex couples nearly all the state rights, benefits and responsibilities currently granted to married spouses under state law. According to Equality California, LGBT Californians and their allies generated more than 14,000 e-mails through their Website in the five days prior to the Assembly vote on AB 205, and thousands more phone calls and faxes were received by assembly members to encourage their support of this measure. Later in the evening of June 4, 2003 the Assembly also passed AB 17, authored by Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Christine Kehoe of San Diego, California by a vote of 42-32. This measure would prohibit the State of California from contracting with businesses that discriminate in benefits between employees with spouses and employees with registered domestic partners.