CARSON CITY – After Gov. Jim Gibbons vetoed the domestic partner rights bill, SB 283, author state Sen. David Parks said he’d have the two votes to override that veto in the Senate. On Saturday night, true to his word, he did.

The Senate voted moments ago to override Gibbons’s veto, 14-7, the bare two-thirds majority needed to disregard the state’s chief exectuive. Parks persuaded two colleagues who originally voted against the measure April 21 — state Sens. Dennis Nolan and Dean Rhodes Rhoads — to reverse their original votes and override the governor.

The bill would allow straight or gay couples to register their relationships with the Secretary of States office and obtain most of the benefits of married couples, without enjoying the actual institution of marriage that Nevada’s constitution limits only to heterosexuals.

Nolan, in a brief speech on the Senate floor, admitted he hadn’t even read SB 283 when it came up for a vote originally, but once he did, he realized that Gibbons’s main objection to the measure — that it ostensibly conflicted with the constitutional amendment limiting marriage to between men and women — was incorrect. (Not only does SB 283 specifically say domestic partnerships don’t constitute marriage, but the language of the amendment said nothing about limiting domestic partnerships.)

Nolan said he suspects if the proponents of the anti-gay marriage ban had included a ban on domestic partnerships in 2000 and 2002, when that measure was incorporated into the constitution by two successive votes of the public, it would not have passed.

Moreover, he said, it was unfair to force gay couples to go through the expensive and time-consuming process of drawing up legal contracts that would grant them the legal rights afforded in SB 283. “It’s our obligation to ensure equal and fair application of the laws to all citizens,” he said.

After noting that he’d received ugly and vile phone messages in response to a so-called “robo-call” to residents of his district, Nolan said his father taught him the only thing worse than doing the wrong thing was to do nothing to correct it. “I believe in my heart I am doing the right thing,” he said.

State Sen. Maurice Washington then rose to give one of the most rambling, bizarre speeches we’ve heard on any subject, to support of the governor’s veto. He appeared to be agreeing with Gibbons’s contention that the measure violated the constitution’s limitation on marriage to between men and women (we think).

Marriage forms family bonds, which see people through hard times and allow them to share their joys, Washington said. (We’re pretty sure that happens in gay families as well as straight ones.)

“This is not about rights. … This is about conduct. This is not about prejudice,” he said, indicating he’s been the victim of prejudice himself. But the root word of “prejudice,” he said, is “pre-judge,” and, “we are pre-judging a conduct, and that conduct is based on character,” he said.

Here, in our notes, the letters “W-T-F?” appear.

“Character is the issue, and character expresses itself through the conduct of a people,” he said. (It sure does, senator, and we’re glad there appears to be a growing majority of people of David Parks’s character.)

You know, maybe term limits — which will end Washington’s career this session — aren’t such a bad idea after all. (A resolution introduced by Washington to end term limits died this session, by the way.)

Parks — who spoke first in Saturday’s override vote — gave the best summary of the bill. “SB 283 is a bill about equality and fairness,” he said. “SB 283 does not circumvent the will of the people, because [the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage] made no mention of domestic partners.”

Plus, he said, legal experts have opined that the measure does not in any way conflict or contradict the constitution.

“SB 283 is not the equivalent of marriage, and every legal expert says so,” he said.

Indeed, and that’s the problem. So long as we live in a state, and a society, that prohibits equal application of the laws — of all the laws — to citizens based on their differences, we will always have to find half-measures in the search for equality. Perhaps one day that won’t be necessary, but until it is, we’re glad to see there were enough people of good character to take that bold half-step toward justice.

SB 283 now goes to the state Assembly. If it is overridden there, it will become law.