As lawmakers in the House prepared last week to take up a measure that would recognize civil unions for same-sex couples, alarmists at Colorado Family Action cranked up their spin machine.
In an “Urgent Call to Action” sent out on Tuesday, the group said: “Under this legislation, rights and benefits afforded by law to married spouses would be extended to homosexual partners through this parallel structure to marriage.
“Every time civil unions has been imposed on states, demands for same-sex marriage have followed.”
But a closer look indicates that things aren’t quite as CFA, the political arm of Focus on the Family, would have you believe.
It is true that Senate Bill 2 would extend “rights and benefits afforded by law to married spouses” to “homosexual partners.”
But civil unions only grant same-sex partners the same rights as married couples under state law, and that’s a key distinction.
Couples in a civil union would see the same benefits as married couples as far as state taxes, health-care decision-making, guardianship and parenting rights.
But those rights are not “portable,” meaning they are not recognized in all states — as marriage is.
Furthermore, there are 1,138 federal “laws in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges,” according to the Government Accountability Office. Extending those benefits, rights and privileges for couples who have a civil union would require a congressional override of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage, for legal purposes, as a union between a man and a woman.
So a civil union might be “parallel” to marriage, but don’t be fooled into thinking that’s “equal.”
It’s not even close.
As for the claim that passage of civil unions is followed by “demands for same-sex marriage,” that may have been true elsewhere. But, according to Brad Clark of the group One Colorado, which advocates for equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals, no other state that has recognized civil unions had a constitutional amendment on the books prohibiting same-sex marriage.
In Colorado, that’s Amendment 43, passed by voters in 2006 when they also rejected Referendum I, which would have recognized civil unions.
So any effort in Colorado to follow up civil-union legislation with a call for same-sex marriage would first take a statewide vote to repeal a constitutional amendment. That’s no small feat.
For the moment, I’ll settle for some small measure of improvement for all people who love one another — the foundation of any family — as opposed to continued discrimination.
Many thoughtful people have said that, since voters previously rejected civil unions, they should once again be given a chance to weigh in.
But to me, this shouldn’t be about democracy. It is one of the reasons our founders gave us a republican form of government — to better look out for the rights of the minority.
That’s not to say that such a measure would fail at the ballot box. Multiple polls (PPP and another for One Colorado) in recent months have shown that a majority of likely voters (a lone exception was a poll conducted for another Focus on the Family affiliate) now support civil unions.
My bet is that views have improved in the last six years as Coloradans have seen friends and loved ones enter into same-sex unions in those states that allow them without the ensuing dire consequences promised by opponents.
But, as the Colorado Family Action e-mail makes clear, there are still people who would stand in the way of progress — and families.
That’s what we should focus on.
E-mail Curtis Hubbard at chubbard@denverpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @curtishubbard
