Domestic partners ruled to be equal to married pairs in state businesses

[dogday]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/02/LESBIAN.TMP

California businesses must treat same-sex domestic partners the same as married couples, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday in the case of a golf club that denied a family membership to a lesbian couple.

The unanimous ruling was the court's first on the state's domestic partner law, which took effect this year and granted to registered partners most of the rights of spouses under state law.

Jon Davidson, legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and lawyer for the couple in the case, called the ruling "an important recognition of our humanity.''

While it was a victory for the 27,000 couples who have registered with the state as domestic partners, it fell short of the broad anti-discrimination mandate sought by their advocates.

[shoelace414]

1. Repubs will call this activist judges

when they are just upholding laws passed by California.