Domestic partners would get new rights to visit their mates in hospitals and make medical decisions for them in a bill that passed the Maryland Senate on Tuesday by a 30-17 vote.

With efforts to approve civil unions or gay marriage stalled, the legislation was a further attempt to extend the rights married people enjoy to couples of either gender in a long-term committed relationship of mutual dependence or support, whether homosexual or not.

“It’s not simply about homosexuality,” said Sen. Allan Kittleman, the only Republican to support the bill. He described a situation of a friend, the widow of a Secret Service agent, who now lives with a man because she would lose survivor benefits if she remarried.

Sen. Alex Mooney, R-Frederick, said the proposed law was just another attempt to undermine the institution of marriage between one man and one woman and “chip away at it one bill at a time.”

“The reason this is too complicated is because we’re not willing to do the right thing and make marriage available to all people,” said Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat who is a co-sponsor of the gay marriage proposal.