Perhaps one of the biggest issues, Donchess said, is that employees are currently only given five hours of funeral leave for friends and domestic partners and cannot take sick leave to care for their partners. Married couples are allowed up to 12 weeks of leave to care for spouses and children.

Based on comparisons with private companies that offer partner benefits, Wilson only expected between 1 and 2 percent of employees to be eligible — with a total cost of anywhere from $37,000 to $74,000.

"It's horribly insulting. For just $36,000 a year, these people could not find a yes vote," Donchess said.

While vetoing the proposal, several of the Republican council members noted they were torn by the decision and didn't want their vote to be taken as a moral jjudgment. In fact, Councilman Mark Crockett said he was "extremely sympathetic" to the plight of employees in same-sex relationships.

"But our community has placed a priority on families and marriage as we've recently defined it," said Crockett, who got choked up while casting his "no" vote.

Although the council voted down the proposal, Hatch said he was hopeful the discussion was not over. In fact, Hatch told his Republican peers he believes many of them will someday share his opinion that domestic partners should have the same employee rights.

"I deeply believe that. I welcome the day. I have an outstretched hand to all of you that will vote no," Hatch said. "It is a human rights issue. It is just how we should treat each other as human beings."

Hatch also cautioned the Republican councilmen to be careful that their no votes didn't get "lumped in with the extremist rhetoric" and "voices out there that can be extremely hateful."

In other business Tuesday, the council:

• Voted against an ordinance to ban the use of cell phones for county business while driving.

• Approved six new employees to implement and run the new electronic voting equipment chosen by the state. The council also voted to look for a storage facility for the roughly 2,800 Diebold voting machines the state will be giving the county in December.

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E-mail: estewart@desnews.com