A House committee passed a bill Thursday aimed at protecting individuals, groups and businesses that refuse for religious reasons to recognize same-sex unions or provide benefits to gay couples in a largely party-line vote.

The Federal and State Affairs Committee’s action comes amid an uncertain legal climate for states like Kansas that ban same-sex marriage. Federal judges recently struck down bans in Oklahoma and Utah.

Kansas law already protects employees from being sanctioned based on religious beliefs, but supporters of House Bill 2453 said more legislation is necessary to protect religious freedom.

The bill says governmental entities can’t require individuals, businesses or religious groups to provide services, facilities, goods or employment benefits related to any marriage or domestic partnership. It also prohibits anti-discrimination lawsuits on such grounds.

Critics say the measure promotes discrimination against gays and lesbians and encourages government officials to ignore court rulings favoring gay marriage.

"The government is for all people," said Rep. Annie Tietze, D-Topeka. "In this type of wording we see the effort to not provide government services to just some of the people."

Tietze offered an amendment to remove adoption, foster care and social services from the bill, but it failed.

Rep. Allan Rothlisberg, R-Grandview Plaza, was among Republicans who objected to the amendment.

"This takes away the freedoms of the individual and subjugates that to the dictates of the state," Rothlisberg said.

Tietze said there were still "lots of questions" about the practical effects of the bill. Other Democrats raised the possibility of gay couples being shut out of parent-teacher conferences, hospital visits or even police response in domestic violence incidents.

But Rep. Willie Dove, R-Bonner Springs, said the current debate over the contraception mandate within the federal health care reforms is evidence that measures like House Bill 2453 are necessary to protect religious individuals from government persecution.

"I believe our religious freedoms are in jeopardy," Dove said.

The original bill stated that businesses and agencies that had agreed to provide services to same-sex couples had to honor those agreements even if one employee refused. But Rep. Travis Couture-Lovelady, R-Palco, successfully introduced an amendment to alter that language.

"There should be no legal duty for the business to have to do that just because one employee has an objection," Couture-Lovelady said. "That’s counter to what the whole bill wants to do."

Rep. Michael Houser, R-Columbus, and Rep. Shanti Gandhi, R-Topeka, both asked whether the amendment would essentially allow businesses to void contracts if one employee objected on religious grounds.

Couture-Lovelady said businesses could still provide services, but wouldn’t be under legal obligation to do so. One of the legal experts from the Legislature's Revisor of Statutes office said he believed employers would still have to prove "undue hardship" in order to refuse services.

"That just goes to my point, once again, which is that the employer can use one employee's beliefs as an argument not to provide the service," Gandhi said.

Gandhi was one of the few Republicans on the committee who voted against the bill.

Tom Witt, executive director of the Kansas Equality Coalition, said none of the hypothetical stories about private businesses posed by proponents of the bill apply because gays aren’t a protected class in state law.

"This isn’t about wedding cakes, this isn’t about flowers, this is about giving government employees the right to not do their jobs," Witt said. "That is the reason for this bill, beginning to end. None of the rest of this means anything. Sexual orientation is not covered in our nondiscrimination statutes. Private businesses are still free and will continue to be free to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.