Partners law stymied

Press, 29 July 1989, Page 20

Partners law stymied

From JOHN N. HUTCHISON in San Francisco

CONSERVATIVE religionists appear to have collected enough signatures to a legal petition to stymie the newly adopted domestic partners law in San Francisco until the voters can adopt or reject it in the elections next November. The city ordinance, adopted unanimously by the city’s Board of Supervisors (councillors) in June, sanctioned the registration of unmarried couples — homosexual or heterosexual — at the city hall, thereby qualifying them

for certain rights hitherto available only to matrimonial spouses. The petition drive was publicly led by the pastor of a small fundamentalist church and a rabbi who has no congregation, but the movement is linked by the press in San Francisco with several conservative organisations, including anti-abortidn activists and a national lobby opposed to the strengthening of women’s rights through the amendment of the Federal Con-

stitution. The Rev. Charles Mcllhenny, whose denomination is a tiny offshoot of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, and Rabbi Lionel Feldman, who is at odds with the community’s Board of Rabbis, were co-sponsors of the petition, bearing 27,000 signatures. If at least 18,800 are certified as valid, the issue must go on the ballot. The new law has been suspended by the supervisors pending resolution of the dispute.