The Pittsburgh City Council gave final approval today to a domestic partner registry. The registry will provide a standard for employers to allow workers to share benefits with their partners. Openly gay city council member and former Victory Fund endorsee Bruce Kraus wrote the legislation.

The legislation passed by a vote of 7-1 and brought cheers from several people in the audience who were at the meeting to receive a proclamation for Pride Week events. Kraus said that the legislation shows that “Pittsburgh is in fact a very progressive and forward-thinking city.”

The Post-Gazette reports:

The legislation drew two opponents to council’s public comment period, including one who called it “a black eye for the city” leading to “Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Delta Foundation Board Member Keri Harmicar countered that “every single person in this city, and this country, and this world, has a right to happiness” and that means embracing different sexual orientations.

The legislation allows any two city residents — unless they are too closely related to be married under state law — to show documentary evidence of their commitment, pay $25, and be registered.

If one is a city employee, then the couple would immediately become eligible to share benefits. The city has long offered benefits to domestic partners and common law spouses of its employees, but the new legislation tightens up definitions.

Other employers could opt to accept the registrations for the purpose of granting shared benefits, but would not be obligated to do so.

Council added an amendment making the names on the registry — but not any supporting documentation of mutual commitment — public records.

Pittsburgh City Councilman and former Victory Fund endorsee Bruce Kraus has proposed rules for a domestic registry that would allow any two city residents to make a “declaration of mutual commitment” and “contribute mutually to each other’s maintenance and support.”

According to the Post-Gazette, the registry would provide benefits to city employees but would not apply to other employers.

“The definition of family is a very broad definition,” Kraus said. “This assists people in legitimizing their relationships and families.”

The Post-Gazette reports:

“It makes us a much more desirable location for young, bright, cutting-edge people who want to come in and live in progressive areas,” Mr. Kraus said. “It really is about being a good place to attract progressive employees and employers, and grow.”

The legislation would allow any two city residents — unmarried people of the same or opposite sex, parents and children, or siblings, to name a few — to report to the city Personnel Department and present documents indicating “mutual responsibility.” They would have to show three such documents, which can include loan papers, utility bills, insurance policies, wills, powers of attorney, contracts, motor vehicle titles, bank or credit account statements, or evidence of mutual child care responsibility.

They then would be certified as domestic registrants, until one party either presented an affidavit terminating the relationship or died.

Registrants who are city employees would be entitled to joint health, dental and vision insurance and other benefits. Domestic partners of city employees can already be insured together on city policies, but the legislation would better define eligibility and modestly extend joint benefits to include sick leave, bereavement leave and family leave.

The proposed rules affecting city employees are “really about fiscal responsibility” because they improve the city’s ability to ensure that only true partners share benefits. “This gives us a good, solid criteria for paying these benefits,” Mr. Kraus said.

Other employers would not be bound to respect city-sanctioned domestic registrations, but would be welcome to use the certifications in granting things like insurance benefits and hospital visitation rights.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives derailed State Sen. Michael Brubaker’s proposed constitutional ban on marriage equality yesterday.

Opposition in the Democratically-controlled House forced Brubaker to let the bill rest indefinitely, meaning it won’t likely be acted upon in the current legislative session. Brubaker did, however, vow to continue his fight for the bill, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Rep. Babette Josephs, who represents the gay district in Philadelphia, was instrumental in the bill’s demise, since she serves as chair of the House State Government Committee, where the bill was headed. Josephs spoke at a rally against the amendment on Monday where she called the legislation “discriminatory, disgraceful, morally wrong and unnecessary.”

The paper reports:

The bill would have amended the constitution to define a legal marriage in Pennsylvania as a union only of one man and one woman. Pennsylvania already has a law doing that, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, but some religious groups and social conservatives want to put the one man-one woman definition into the constitution, to make it stronger and prevent “liberal judges” from allowing gays or lesbians to try to get married or to join in “civil unions,” as they can in several other states.

Mr. Brubaker, a freshman senator, “has worked hard and diligently on this very difficult issue,” said Sen. Michael Waugh, R-York, a co-sponsor of the bill. “He has brought it along and contributed to its progress, but I support the move to table. It’s the most prudent action under the circumstances.”

The chances that Senate Bill 1250 might have passed the Senate were good, since it’s controlled by Republicans 29 to 21. The measure just passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 18-8 on Monday, and had also passed in the Judiciary Committee.

Openly gay Pittsburgh City Councilman penned a column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sunday condemning a proposed constitutional ban on marriage equality and calling it “homophobia, bigotry and sanctioned discrimination of a selected class of people.”

Kraus, who won election to the City Council last year with the support of the Victory Fund, adapted his piece from remarks he made at a state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic.

Kraus writes:

Today, once again, by the actions of our Pennsylvania General Assembly, I am reminded that the last, socially acceptable targets of discrimination within our society are gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. With Senate Bill 1250, Pennsylvania state legislators, under the guise of morality and religiosity, seek to amend the constitution of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to read: “No union other than a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage or the functional equivalent of marriage by the commonwealth.”

With all the challenges that we, as a commonwealth, are facing — deteriorating infrastructure; staggering health-care costs; municipalities crippled by the inability or unwillingness of legislators to ensure that nonprofits contribute toward ever escalating municipal service costs; rampant gun violence; and corruption in government — certain Pennsylvania state legislators would like us to believe that defining marriage and outlawing civil union is our most pressing legislative priority.

In reality this is their mark of shame.

Legislating a ban on same-sex marriage or civil unions is homophobia, bigotry and sanctioned discrimination of a selected class of people. I would liken homophobia to racism, sexism and anti-Semitism because it seeks to dehumanize people and deny them their dignity, personhood and equal protection under the law. In the year 2008, would you dare to legislate to deny marriage or civil union based on race, creed, age or ethnicity?

Read the rest of Kraus’ column here.  Currently, the Victory Fund has endorsed Kevin Lee as a candidate for the Pennsylvania state legislature.