House wards off veto threat with gay slap

By a surprisingly bipartisan vote of 224-200, the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed an amendment banning the use of federal funds to support Washington, D.C.'s local domestic-partner registry.

The White House warned Wednesday that President Bush would veto this year's routine appropriations bill for the District of Columbia if it did not include such an amendment, a response to the district's strengthening of its same-sex partner benefits last year.

Officials said the vote will have little practical effect because the city uses local funds for the partner registry, The Washington Post reported.

But gay activists deplored the move, with Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese calling the veto threat "a new low" in "antigay zeal."

The district, though it gets most of its revenue from local taxes, also receives federal funding through Congress, making it more vulnerable than other cities to shifts in the national political winds.

The antigay amendment was sponsored by right-wing Republican representative Virgil Goode of Virginia. Forty Democrats supported it; 12 Republicans were opposed.

"The U.S. House of Representatives should be on record supporting traditional marriage between a man and a woman, and oppose alternative definitions of marriage," Goode told the Post.

"The GOP tried to make this a debate about gay marriage, which it wasn't," wrote D.C.-based political consultant John Aravosis on his Americablog.com.

The District of Columbia first recognized domestic partnerships in 1992 and greatly strengthened them last year. The registry is open to same- and opposite-sex unmarried couples and confers rights to hospital visitation, medical decision-making, joint tax filing, and inheritance, among others, according to the local Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. D.C. public employees also can get health and other benefits for their partners. About 80% of the registered partners are gay.

"Then again," Aravosis wrote, "if we follow the GOP logic, that this was a vote on gay marriage, then the pro-marriage-equality forces got 200 votes today, including a number of Republicans. And that's more than any federal gay marriage vote to date." (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)