MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) – About 500 couples registered as domestic partners in a handful of towns that opened their offices on the first day the new law took effect. State Health Department officials said none were opposite-sex couples over 62, although they also are eligible.

While lesbian and gay couples and their advocates long sought state recognition, the domestic partnership options for straight senior citizens came about without much lobbying from those who would benefit.

In fact, Assemblymember Gerald Green, D-Union, a champion of that part of the bill, said that no one testified in legislative hearings on it. AARP was silent on the issue, as were other senior citizen groups.

Laura Popel, president of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition, said her group initially wanted any pair of adults seeking domestic partner status to be allowed to register with the state. Younger opposite-sex couples and adult children caring for their parents could have registered as partners under that proposal.

“New Jersey families should be covered regardless of what their configurations are,” Popel said.

But lawmakers bristled at the idea of extending benefits to unmarried heterosexual couples.

“You could take it all the way to 21-plus,” Green said. “It would be at a huge cost to the government.”

So while other categories of couples were removed from the legislation, no one seemed to object to letting the older couples register, and that provision remained in the bill that was adopted in January.

Green said the senior-oriented part of the bill helped it get support from people who dismissed the whole thing as a move toward legalizing same-sex marriage.

“When people get older, for a lot of reasons, they can’t get married,” Green said. “I don’t think they should be penalized for that.”

Finances are among the chief obstacles. Some pensions are cut off for widows and widowers who remarry, Green said. And divorcees who remarry may lose Social Security survivor benefits, said Mary WanderPolo, a Montclair-based lawyer who specializes in representing senior citizens.

Registering as domestic partners, however, does not put those benefits at risk.

WanderPolo said there is a downside for seniors and others to becoming domestic partners, however, and she would caution any of her clients who were considering taking that plunge.

If one partner incurs big hospital bills, for example, the other could find a lien on his or her property to pay for them, she said.

“I think people are rushing into it too fast,” she said. “They really need to understand what the economic consequences are.”

WanderPolo said that none of her senior citizen clients have yet asked her for advice on domestic partnerships.