The most important points in the first letter to Berkeley were 1) that denial of benefits to all homosexual spouses which are routinely given to most heterosexual spouses constituted sexual-orientation discrimination, and 2) that the City of Berkely had the authority and obligation to abolish this discrimation in its own procedures and in the performance of those contracting with the City to provide employee benefits.
The second letter's most important points were that 1) the marriage criteria for eligibility for benefit plans served some legitimate purposes and that any augmentation should also work in a similar fashion, and 2) that a "domestic partnership" policy could both end discrimination against same-sex couples and maintain the functionality of the benefits systems. This letter defined "domestic partnership" as having three requirements, all attested by affidavit: 1) the couple would be qualified to marry but for the fact they were of the same gender, 2) they resided together, and 3) they declared each other as their sole domestic partner.
The City of Berkeley initial reaction was to hand off the rejection to Kaiser Permanente, the Health Maintenance Organization plan that Brougham had applied for.