The City Commission of Coral Gables, Fla. unanimously approved an ordinance extending the same employment benefits enjoyed by married couples to the domestic partners of city workers, including gay, lesbian and transgender couples.

The measure, which the five-member commission approved at its Oct. 30 meeting, grants city employees' domestic partners and their children access to insurance coverage, paid leave and “all other benefits” on the same basis as they are available to heterosexual employees' spouses and children.

“The city recognizes that employees may establish and maintain important personal, emotional and economic relationships with persons to whom they are not married, that individuals forming such domestic partnerships live in a committed family relationship and that employees in domestic partner relationships should be granted (the same) employment benefits” as married couples, the commission said in its ordinance.

“I'm delighted to see this ordinance approved today unanimously,” City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera said in a statement. “I'm just sorry it took this long and was so difficult to have the professional administration accept it. However, we have finally done the right thing for our employees.”

The vote was heralded the next day by SAVE Dade, a Miami-based equal rights advocacy group.

“The Coral Gables City Commission took a bold step today for equality, acknowledging that equal benefits for equal work is a core value in our community,” C.J. Ortuño, the group's executive director, said in a press release the day after the vote.

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Employment benefits for domestic partnerships were brought to the city commission's attention almost a year after Rene Tastet, an acting major in the city's police department, was denied bereavement leave when her partner's father passed away in April 2011. Ms. Tastet filed a grievance with the city manager's office with the support of SAVE Dade and the Fraternal Order of Police, but received little response, according to SAVE Dade.

“I have been a police officer with the city for 22 years and today I finally have the same rights as my fellow officers,” Ms. Tastet said in the group's release. “Although I knew I would not be fired, my career and position as an acting major within the police department is important to me and I feared the unknown that even today many gay people still experience.”

With the commission's vote, Coral Gables became the seventh city in Miami-Dade County to extend employment benefits to the domestic partners of its employees.