Gov. Bill Ritter has signed into law a bill granting health insurance and other benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Monday’s signing of Senate Bill 88 means benefits normally accorded to the legal spouses of state employees will become available to same-sex partners “with whom the employee has shared an exclusive, committed relationship for at least one year with the intent for the relationship to last indefinitely.”

Ritter often signs bills at public ceremonies involving sponsoring legislators and other supporters; when he signed a bill on Thursday allowing the police to collect DNA samples from felony suspects, the witnesses included the bill’s sponsors, Attorney General John Suthers and the mother of the New Mexico girl whose murder inspired the Colorado measure and similar laws in other states.

But SB88 was signed without fanfare. The state Legislature’s Web site still listed the gay benefits bill as unsigned on Thursday.

According to The Denver Post, which first reported the signing on Thursday, the bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, said he had not been informed of the governor’s action.

Supporters of the bill said it gave fair treatment to gay and lesbian couples and made the state more competitive as an employer. Critics said it discriminated against heterosexual unmarried couples.

Rep. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, said a recession was the wrong time to expand the pool of state insurance beneficiaries, estimated by the state Legislative Council to cost roughly $140,000 per year. He also pointed to the potential for fraud for state employees who “self-declare that a relationship exists.”

Ritter’s signing, after voters rejected legal domestic partnerships in 2006, “shows how out of touch he is with the people of Colorado,” Lambert said.-Contact the writer at 476-1654