SACRAMENTO, California (AP) – Debate over a bill that would let registered domestic partners in California file joint state tax returns devolved into a shouting match as state lawmakers accused each other of intolerance and one Republican said his gay colleagues live a deviant lifestyle.

Discussion of the bill on Aug. 23 began to heat up when Republican Assemblymember Jay La Suer called the measure “part of the homosexual agenda.” He said it would negatively affect California’s children by teaching them “that this is an acceptable lifestyle.”

Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, a Democrat, countered that “the real homosexual agenda is simple equality and freedom from discrimination.” He said the bill would move California closer to that goal.

Existing state law allows married couples to file joint or separate tax returns. The bill, sponsored by state Senator Carole Migden, a Democrat who is one of six openly gay members of the Legislature, would extend that same right to registered domestic partners.

California bans same-sex marriage but allows same-sex civil unions or domestic partnerships that confer most of the same legal rights, such as access to family benefits at work and the ability to adopt children as a couple.

The debate took a personal turn when Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg, a Democrat, said she felt personally offended by La Suer’s remarks, telling him he was “castigating me and mine.”

After La Suer argued that he had every right to disagree with Goldberg’s lifestyle, efforts to bring the discussion back to the specifics of the bill were thwarted by an outburst from Assemblymember Dennis Mountjoy, a Republican.

“What you seek in society is acceptance,” he said to Goldberg, addressing his comments to her and the other two openly gay members of the Assembly. “But your lifestyle is abnormal. It is sexually deviant.”

The Democrats immediately broke for a caucus meeting, an apparent effort to cool the rhetoric.

When the session resumed, Mountjoy apologized if he had personally offended anyone, saying his remarks were an effort to defend his values and principles.

The bill, which had previously passed the state Senate, later was approved by a 44-28 vote, largely along party lines. It now returns to the Senate for a final vote.

Migden’s bill was one of several gay rights measures getting attention last week.

The other bills are designed to promote tolerance and to prohibit discrimination or negative portrayals of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people within public schools and organizations that receive government funding.