What Dawn Gibbons said

As the state Senate was voting on a controversial domestic partnership bill Tuesday night, advocates of gay rights were getting support from an unexpected source: first lady Dawn Gibbons, the estranged wife of Gov. Jim Gibbons.

The governor has said he will veto the bill that passed the Senate by a 12-9 vote, but Dawn Gibbons apparently holds a different view, according to attendees at a Tuesday night reception for a group of advocates who had gone to Carson City to lobby for equal rights for gay Nevadans.

At the reception for the group at the governor's mansion, Bill Schafer of Las Vegas said he asked the first lady what she thought about domestic partnership rights.

"She said she felt everybody should have equal rights and responsibilities," Schafer said. "So I said, 'This whole crowd would really love to hear that,' and I got her a microphone. She told us all that she believed in equality for everyone, that we all deserve the same rights and responsibilities with respect to our partnerships."

The group gave Dawn Gibbons a warm round of applause, said Schafer, the publisher of Las Vegas Night Beat, a gay entertainment magazine.

The Gibbonses' own domestic partnership is a delicate one. Under a negotiated agreement while the divorce proceeding brought by the governor is pending, the first lady lives in separate quarters attached to the mansion.