Domestic Partner Law Faces 2nd Challenge
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A second legal challenge was filed Tuesday against San Francisco’s domestic partners ordinance, this one by an organization founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson.
The ordinance, which became effective June 1, requires all companies seeking contracts with the city to offer health benefits to the domestic partners of their employees on the same basis that they offer benefits to spouses.
It was challenged in federal court last month by the Air Transport Assn., representing the nation’s major airlines, in a suit arguing that San Francisco was violating exclusive federal regulation of air transportation and employee benefits.
Tuesday’s suit was filed by P.M. & M Electric, an engineering firm represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, founded by Robertson in 1990. Most of the legal claims were similar to those in the airline suit, but the center added a statement reflecting its ideological opposition to the ordinance.
“The goal of this ordinance is to destroy traditional marriage as the bedrock institution in our society and, in its place, substitute whatever sexual arrangements are currently in vogue,” said the center’s lawyer, Benjamin Bull.
Chief Assistant City Atty. Dennis Aftergut said: “I’m sure the airlines are happy to have an ally in the battle to protect their right to discriminate against domestic partners.”
The suit seeks an order barring enforcement of the ordinance. It is to be assigned to U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, who is hearing the airline suit.
P.M. & M., a general contracting firm with an office in Oakland, says it would like to bid for San Francisco contracts but is excluded by the ordinance because the company is unwilling to offer domestic partner benefits.
The suit says that San Francisco, by requiring its contractors to offer certain benefits, is attempting to regulate workplace benefits that are governed by federal law and is placing an undue burden on interstate commerce.
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