Salt Lake City, for example, does not provide access to health, dental or life insurance benefits for domestic partners, human resources director Brenda Hancock said. Recently, the city did agree to provide funeral leave benefits if an employee's domestic partner dies.

"It's important because it's an indicator of whether or not the contributions of non-married employees are valued as much as the contributions of married employees," Marquardt said. "It's a slap in the face to the non-married employees."

But along with Ashton, Republican council member Marv Hendrickson isn't convinced the new ordinance will sail through today's council meeting. Hendrickson said his mind isn't made up, and he wants to have a more in-depth discussion of the issue.

"What constitutes the domestic partner? You can be in or out of domestic partners on a daily basis," he said. "You can't do that with husbands or wives."

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E-mail: estewart@desnews.com