Legislative
VOTE 2006!

VOTE 2006! – Competing measures on the rights of gays and lesbians to domestic partnerships and marriage will likely be on your ballot this November. On Wednesday, February 1, backers of traditional marriage and supporters of domestic partnerships formally filed separate measures for the November ballot, to determine what rights gay and lesbian couples have in Colorado.

The Colorado Domestic Partnership Act, if approved by the legislature, would appear as a referendum on your ballot. TAKE ACTION by contacting your legislators. This measure must gain approval in both the Colorado House and Senate in order to go to the voters this November. This act will ensure that eligible same-sex couples have the opportunity to obtain the same benefits and protections now afforded by Colorado law to married opposite-sex couples, consistent with the principles of equality under the law.

Under this measure, gay and lesbian couples who obtain a domestic partnership license could gain the right to, among other things:

• Adopt a partner’s child
  
• Make decisions about a partner’s medical care and funeral arrangements
  
• Hospital visitation rights as a family member
  
• Access to health insurance as a dependent on a partner’s policy

The ACLU of Colorado strongly supports the Colorado Domestic Partnership Act and urges you to do the same, so that every person in our state has equality under the law, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identification.

The other measure likely on the November ballot will be an amendment to the Colorado State Constitution. The Colorado Marriage Amendment reads, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.” Organizers of this measure only need approval of the wording from the secretary of state and valid signatures of 68,000 voters, to have this measure appear on the ballot as an initiative to amend the state constitution.

This amendment would not change current state law that already defines marriage as a heterosexual union. It would serve only to further strengthen discrimination against gays and lesbians, by building in an inequality into the Colorado State Constitution with regard to same sex relationships. The ACLU of Colorado strongly opposes the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.