We have the puzzling optics of an openly gay SF supervisor wanting to repeal the city’s domestic partner benefits law, but Supervisor Matt Dorsey says he’s just trying to save some money on city contracts.
The Bay Area Reporter was the first with the head-scratching news last week that openly gay SF Supervisor Matt Dorsey was looking to repeal SF’s same-sex domestic partner benefits law. Or rather, Dorsey was exploring the idea of revoking the city’s equal benefits ordinance (EBO), which passed in 1996 before same-sex marriage was legal, that required any comanies doing business with the city to provide the same benefits to same-sex domestic partners as they provided to spouses of married straight people.
The response from the LGBTQ+ was outright shock and disappointment.
“It’s very disturbing to hear, especially from a gay man,” former SF supervisor and state Assemblymember Tom Ammiano told the Bay Area Reporter. When the Chronicle picked up the story Tuesday, Ammiano told that paper, “It’s a totally misplaced priority, especially given the hate climate that exists today and the Supreme Court talking about repealing gay marriage and all the anti-trans stuff.”
Today, I’m asking the @SFBOS Budget and Legislative Analyst to research costs associated with our Equal Benefits Ordinance, which mandates domestic partner benefits that were once — but no longer — the only chance gay and lesbian couples had for equal employment benefits.
— Matt Dorsey (@mattdorsey) July 29, 2025
(1/12) pic.twitter.com/3nPgA0M3rg
But to hear Dorsey tell it, he’s just trying to save the city some money by repealing an outdated rule. Per the above letter from Dorsey to the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst's Office, only 45% large businesses these days even offer domestic partner benefits now that same-sex marriage is legal. "It seems plausible that expanding our bidding eligibility from fewer than 45 percent of businesses to 100 percent would achieve some measure of savings for the more robust competition,” Dorsey wrote in that letter.
We should note that Dorsey is currently just asking about the potential cost savings, and has not yet introduced any legislation to repeal the equal benefits law. But he sure seems to be going in that direction.
“At some point, we have to question if it’s worth the money, and whether our laws are making a difference,” Dorsey told the Chronicle. “It’s not a question of whether we end benefits or not, but we need to get a handle on how much money we’re spending.”
He also adds that his repeal legislation — should he ever submit it — would have a clause that reinstated those benefits if the Trumper Supreme Court ever overturns the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
City contracting is broken. If San Franciscans had any idea how many wasteful “feel-good” mandates have been piled into our city contracts over the decades — to make competitive bidding LESS competitive, and goods and services MORE expensive — they’d be as infuriated as I am.… pic.twitter.com/ZvHLtqWmTN
— Matt Dorsey (@mattdorsey) July 10, 2025
The bigger picture is a fairly common refrain from Dorsey (as seen above) that “wasteful ‘feel-good’ mandates have been piled into our city contracts over the decades.” But Dorsey is a well-paid civil servant with that 20 years of city pension ahead of him, and arguably legislates from an “Abundance” bro perspective.
That did get him re-elected in 2022. But revoking a provision regarding same-sex partner benefits, whatever the financial rationale, is a pretty risky gambit from an optics standpoint in a city that prides itself as a pioneer for those benefits.
Image: SFGovTV
