The San Diego Coalition for Domestic Partnership Rights met at The Center on Tuesday, Nov. 25, to discuss and plan their intensive four-month campaign to defeat Senator William J. “Pete” Knight’s efforts to roll back the recently enacted Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act, AB 205.

While Knight is gathering signatures to put the referendum on the 2004 March or November ballot, two campaign committees have already formed to oppose it: San Diegans for Domestic Partner Rights, a local campaign led by the Coalition, and Equality California’s statewide Equality for California Families. Both campaigns are growing rapidly.

In accordance with the State Constitution, Knight and other proponents of the referendum have until Dec. 21 to turn in 374,000 valid voter signatures. If the AB 205 referendum gets on the 2004 ballot, California voters will have to vote yes for Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities in order to retain AB 205, though many are unaware of its implications.

“We believe that San Diego is going to be a critical battleground in this referendum,” said Bob Nelson, media chair for San Diegans for Domestic Partner Rights. “We are the second largest county in the state. We’ve got close to 1.5 million voters. This is a county that voted [no] on Proposition 54 and carried for Bill Clinton; this can be a major turning point for the campaign, and so we need to get organized here.”

AB 205 is more progressive than Vermont’s civil unions legislation with regards to GLBT civil rights, and is the nation’s most comprehensive domestic partnership legislation for GLBT individuals, couples and families. The bill, authored by State Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), passed in September primarily due to the efforts of State Assemblymember Christine Kehoe, the LGBT Caucus and Equality California, which is the lobbying organization that helped move AB 205 through the state legislature.

AB 205 grants over 300 rights and responsibilities to domestic partners. These rights include the right for domestic partners to make funeral arrangements, to receive death benefits for the surviving partners of firefighters and police officers and to receive public assistance upon the death of a partner, as well as the right to victim’s compensation (which domestic partners do not currently have under California law). AB 205 also grants domestic partners medical leave, family care and bereavement leave, pension rights for certain categories of people and the right not to testify against their partners in court. The bill recognizes GLBT relationships in family court, custody provisions and child support obligations, joint assessment of income and mutual responsibility for debts, community property protection, equality and fairness in workman’s compensation, and equality for domestic partners in student family housing, senior citizen housing and rent control.

The goals of the Nov. 25 Coalition meeting were to bring together representatives from the many organizations involved and community members who may not have been following the legislation closely to discuss the status of the referendum, and what newly won rights GLBTs stand to lose if the referendum succeeds in overturning AB 205.

The Coalition has three co-chairs: Dale Kelly Bankhead, communications director for the ACLU and Center board member, local attorney Paula Rosenstein, who also serves on the state board of Equality California, and Richard Valdez, another local attorney who is also vice chair of The Center board.

Coalition subcommittees are composed of an experienced group of community leaders as well. M.E. Stephens, who argued the case on the Balboa Park Boy Scouts lease, is targeting the progressive legal, civil rights and labor organizations. Delores Jacobs, executive director of The Center, is educating and mobilizing San Diego GLBT organizations, Aurora Zapeda, a professor at UCSD, is organizing the Speaker’s Bureau, and Jess Durfee, San Diego Democratic Club president, is heading up a field committee.

“The Massachusetts case and the rulings in Canada are certainly stirring up the religious right, and they are on a holy crusade to try and turn back our progress,” said Nelson. “We will be judged by how well we succeed in dealing with their efforts.… But I’m fairly confident, because I can look to the examples of what other minority populations have been able to achieve thanks to the fair-mindedness of most Americans.”

Knight, a Republican who has a gay son, was the chief sponsor of the Definition of Marriage Initiative (Prop. 22) better known as the Knight Initiative, which sought to ban gay marriage in California three years ago. Opponents saw the initiative as a threat to more than GLBT marriage rights, infringing upon California’s GLBT anti-discrimination protection, adoption rights, health care and domestic partner benefits. Despite the opposition of Democrats and many Republicans, the measure passed in March 2000, 58-42.

Proponents of the referendum include the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal, public interest and religious alliance comprised of 150 anti-GLBT national organizations. The alliance was also a major proponent of last October’s “Marriage Protection Week.”

“[This] is the battle that we face,” said Nelson. “The people that want to roll back our rights don’t want us to make one step forward.… I don’t want to sound impolite, but I think that most of us would agree that our days of being shoved back into the closet are over. The LGBT community is increasingly demonstrating itself to be a potent political force, and through unity and solidarity with our many friends in the broader community, we really think we can have an effective campaign here in San Diego. If Bonnie Dumanis can do it, we can do it.”

With the recent decision of Illinois lawmakers to remove from the fall agenda a bill that aimed to grant job and housing rights to GLBTs — attributed to the aftermath of the recent Mass. Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex marriage and Illinois voters’ anxiety about same-sex marriage in their own state — many California legislators and voters wonder whether the Mass. ruling will have a positive or negative effect on AB 205 referendum efforts.

“I think it’s going to have both effects,” said Nelson. “My own observations about the civil rights movement … have been that quite often you see one step forward and a half-step back. You end up making a lot of progress through half-steps forward.”

Though polls show that many California voters supportive of equal protection for GLBT couples are skittish about GLBT marriage rights, Nelson did not feel that the Massachusetts ruling would adversely affect efforts to defeat the referendum.

“Marriage is a hot-button word for a lot of people,” said Nelson. “Fortunately, marriage is not a part of AB 205. I say fortunately in terms of the battle we have to face.… I have a fairly high opinion of the California voter after having been involved in statewide politics for 30 years.… I think it’s going to be very clear to them that this is not about marriage, it is about providing fair and equal rights under California state law to people regardless of their sexual orientation.”

To endorse AB 205 or to volunteer in the campaign against the referendum, contact A.J. Davis-DeFeo at (619) 692-2077, ext. 212. To provide financial assistance, send donations to San Diegans for Domestic Partner Rights, P.O. Box 87131, San Diego, CA 92138. For more information on the statewide effort organized by Equality for California Families, view this article online at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to their website.