Colorado Civil Unions Bill Killed On A Party Line Vote In House Judiciary Committee

After hours of emotional testimony, Senate Bill 172, the Colorado Civil Unions Bill, was killed on a party line vote in the House Judiciary Committee Thursday night.

The Bill, which was approved by the Democratic Senate last week, was sponsored by Democratic Senator Pat Steadman and Representative Mark Ferrandino, both of whom are gay. The measure would have allowed gay couples to enter into legally-recognized partnerships that would have afforded them many of the rights that are currently reserved for married couples.

"It's explicitly different, a contract within law, but not marriage," Ferrandino said at the beginning of the hearing.

Nonetheless, opponents of the bill argued that the bill essentially amounts to gay marriage, which Colorado voters rejected in a 2006 ballot initiative.

"A vote in favor of civil unions… is a vote for same sex marriage," said Doug Napier, Senior Legal Counsel for the conservative Colorado Family Action during his testimony against SB 172.

Proponents of the bill included many gay couples who gave tearful testimonies on what the passage of Senate Bill 172 would mean to them.

Others supporters predicted that the bill would help lure jobs to Colorado, and add money to state coffers.

All 5 Democrats on the Committee voted for the bill, while all 6 Republicans on the committee voted against the it. Republican Representatives Brian DelGrosso, Jerry Sonnenberg and B.J. Nikkel, considered moderates on the committee, took long pauses before submitting their "no" votes Thursday night.

READ THE BILL:

172_01

Comments

[NAMU2010]

05:16 PM on 04/07/2011

We are not going away...no matter how many times the bigots vote against our right to equality!

[EmmaLib]

11:16 AM on 04/06/2011

Once again the religious right is able to dictate within OUR government, their bigoted morals upon everyone. That wouldn't be so laughable if the religious right actually practiced what they preached.
Hey GOP and Tea-baggers, what behooves ya, what sends the tingles up your leg with the need to control what others do in the privacy of their own home, with their lives, not yours, what they do with their uterus......sounds pretty perverted to me.

[Ioan Lightoller]

03:23 PM on 04/06/2011

Sounds like a buch of Peeping Toms to me. Perverted indeed.

[juzcuz]

07:02 PM on 04/04/2011

Hang in there dear GLBT community; I know it's very disheartening but I do believe that within the next couple of years - federally recognized gay marriages will be acknowledged, recognized and respected in all 50 states and we WILL have equal rights & justice just like straight couples have.

[jennysez]

02:44 PM on 04/06/2011

Or, they could all just move here to Massachusetts and not have to wait for the good people of Colorado to grow consciences and do the right thing. And hey, our Attorney General is already suing the federal government over DOMA provisions that prevent legally married couples from enjoying the same federal benefits of marriage that heterosexual couples enjoy.

Oh, and while I'm extending invitations; anyone denied health insurance for preexisting conditions come on over too, no need to wait on the feds on that either. I have Crohn's Disease and after spending a decade without insurance/medical care every time I walk into my doctor's office, this Democrat whispers a little prayer of thanks to Romney for ensuring I won't die from lack of health care.

[Freikugel]

12:58 PM on 04/04/2011

"Others supporters predicted that the bill would help lure jobs to Colorado, and add money to state coffers."

The Repubs should have taken note of this, if nothing else. But once again we see their true priorities - not jobs or economic growth, but first and foremost implementing socially backwards policies. I can say will full confidence that, as a newly college-educated LGBT American myself, I will be looking to move to states that will support my family, not Colorodo or other states that are moving retrograde to cultural progress. And many others are doing the same.

[HHUA]

11:43 AM on 04/04/2011

"A vote in favor of civil unions… is a vote for same sex marriage,"

Which amounts to:

"a vote for giving people 'rights' is a vote for people's rights"!

What a bunch of low life form sc*mb*gs.

[Ioan Lightoller]

08:34 PM on 04/04/2011

Fanned and faved. That is exactly what they are. They are not "protecting marriage" or "protecting the family" or anything remotely like that. They are making sure they have the legislative wherewithal to keep the GLBT population in what they would like to think is "its place".

[bcstractor]

11:12 PM on 04/03/2011

The republicans are trying to put laws on the books stopping any application of "Sharia" law but are quite happy to stuff Christian law on to us.

Are they really that dumb not to notice the hypocrisy.

Religion is holding this country back. Government is supposed to be about making a better place for everybody. These clowns want to take us back to the dark ages.

[carmenalex]

07:08 PM on 04/03/2011

This is sooo frustrating how religion seeks and is successful in controlling aspects of our lives, even for those who do not believe in their bigoted anti-reason doctrine.
For the record I would like to state that my significant other with whom i have a beautiful daughter with and myself have not married and WILL NOT marry, until every couple that love each other have the right to do so.
This is blatant bigotry, no more no less. If you don't like gay marriage then don't marry a gay person. Stop using the government to impose religious dogma.

[Ioan Lightoller]

10:26 PM on 04/03/2011

Awwww, thak you. I am sick to death of religious types thinking they should be able to force their religion's rules down everyone else's throat. Of course it's bigotry. There is no reason to hassle GLBT and forbid them marriage based on science. The ONLY "reasons" are religious at base.

This is NOT a Christian country even if the fundies would like to pretend that it is. These people want and believed they are destined to make a Christianist theocracy of this country. It is called dominionism. God/dess help us all if they ever get power in this country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Dominionism

[HHUA]

11:51 AM on 04/04/2011

IF they ever get power?!

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

09:17 AM on 04/03/2011

How about we have a constitutional amendment entitled "Mind Your Own Fing Business"?

Don't like abortion?? Don't have one.
Don't like samesex marriage? Don't marry someone of your own sex.
Don't like birth control? Do your own rabbit-reproduction routine.
Don't like christianity? Don't be a christian.

Just mind your own fing business.

[Ioan Lightoller]

05:25 PM on 04/03/2011

Fanned and faved. Eminently sensible advice. Sadly the fundies think they have the right to meddle in the lives of whom they don't approve. Whatever happened to your completely sensible MYOB?!!

[carmenalex]

07:00 PM on 04/03/2011

fanned, couldn't have said it better myself.

[WheelsOnFire]

09:12 AM on 04/03/2011

Yet another example of the triumph of bigotry, hatred and discrimination -- in a country that romps around the globe telling other countries that it should provide freedom and equlity for all.

Welcome to the United States of Hypocrisy.

[Ioan Lightoller]

05:26 PM on 04/03/2011

Wish I could fan you again, WheelsOnFire. That is exactly what it should be called. I know that is what I will refer to it as until we have all the rights the straights have.

[juzcuz]

07:05 PM on 04/04/2011

I agree with you; I do find it amusing (in a sick sort of way) that America is so concerned with human rights, equality and justice in Iraq, Afghan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and so many other 'backwards' countries and yet we DON'T HAVE  human & civil rights, equality and justice in our USof America. What a joke!

[RealConservativeAmerican]

09:16 PM on 04/02/2011

I'm being a little reactionary here but this once again confirms that Republicans are complete and total nimrods, unfit to govern anything. What hosebags!

[huntjohn]

10:22 PM on 04/02/2011

Thank God, for Reps. Without them, you Libs would have already run the country down like Sodom and Gomorrah

[Ioan Lightoller]

08:05 AM on 04/03/2011

Oh yeah. Any party that would take us back a century if allowed to seems to be right up your alley. Oh and the "sin of Sodom" was refusing hospitality to strangers a big no-no in that part of the world.

[Ioan Lightoller]

09:03 AM on 04/03/2011

Sorry that the thought of loving same-sex couples being able to share the joys of even a civil union, limited as it might be, makes you so upset. The fact that it does says volumes about you and what it says is not very nice.

Sad that you can't even feel empathy with them, but then empathy is an emotion foreign to most Rethuglican neo=cons.

[Left Hook]

01:17 PM on 04/02/2011

Ahh, Colorado - That bastion of "conservative christian" live and let live non-intrusive government - GAG!

[talkstocoyotes]

02:18 PM on 04/02/2011

Colorado is home to Colorado Springs, so homophobic bigotry in that neck of the woods is hardly surprising.

[Ioan Lightoller]

08:59 PM on 04/02/2011

Tell me about it! We have people who can't seem to run their own lives wanting to tell us how to live, even when our lives do not affect yours.

[juzcuz]

07:08 PM on 04/04/2011

The capitol of Colorado isn't Denver.. it's Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs - they seem to have all the power and determining factors but they will eventually blow up into smithereens. You can't be bigots and live hatred without the Karma of Fairness striking eventually.

[Ioan Lightoller]

02:03 AM on 04/05/2011

True. I look forward to that day as Karma for all they have done to GLBT families.

[ScoutandBuckGoodDogs]

11:54 AM on 04/02/2011

At any moment, my harmless comment will get posted. Geez!

[rcampbell]

11:42 AM on 04/02/2011

This is essentially the same as enacting Islamic Sharia laws in Colorado and elsewhere in the US. The ONLY reason there is opposition to same-sex marriages is the imposition of Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious laws, superstitions and the kind of anti-modernity inherent in the bigotry of religious adherence.

[talkstocoyotes]

02:20 PM on 04/02/2011

Sooner or later people in the US will wake up to how little there is to choose from between Sharia law and the "Christian nation." If the history of Christianity is any indication, what difference there is would disappear as soon as Christianists got the temporal power to imprison or execute "undesirable" people.

[RealConservativeAmerican]

09:22 PM on 04/02/2011

I absolutely despise living under Christian theocratic rule. Why it's not seen as such, I have no clue. I try to take comfort in knowing that more and more young people are abandoning their parents religious beliefs. I just wish they'd get out and VOTE.

[huntjohn]

10:33 PM on 04/02/2011

Genesis also teaches that God instituted and designed marriage between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:18-25). There are a number of reasons why He did so.

The complementary structure of the male and female anatomy is obviously designed for the normal husband-wife relationships. Clearly, design in human biology supports heterosexuality and contradicts homosexuality.

The combination of male and female enables man (and the animals) to produce and nurture offspring as commanded in Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth.” This command is repeated to Noah after the Flood (Genesis 8:15-17). But procreation is not the only reason God made humans as sexual beings. The BUWA report affirms “that sexual intimacy between husband and wife is good, and is intended by God for bonding, pleasure and procreation.”7

Thirdly, God gave man and woman complementary roles in order to strengthen the family unit. Woman was to be the helper that man needed (Genesis 2:18). However, the woman's role as the helpmate is certainly not an inferior one. The enterprising God-fearing woman in Proverbs 31:10-31 is an inspiring role model.

[timetraveler2039]

10:18 AM on 04/02/2011

Have been married and divorced three times - wouldn't wish that on any of my gay friends! Sorry, but gay marriage will soon be a non-issue -- too many people are now in favor of this happening. As older citizens make way for younger, more tolerant folks, we will wonder why it ever was such a concern.

[SubgeniusMustHaveSlack]

10:06 AM on 04/02/2011

Keep digging that hole of hate based, archaic politricks you are down in republickans. Your relevance is long since passed.