The Daily Populous Thursday November 7th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by cpr.org and submitted by plz-let-me-in

Amendment J, which takes language out of Colorado's constitution that declared marriage only to be valid if it’s between a man and a woman, passed decisively Tuesday night.

Voters put the ban into the state constitution in 2006, adding an amendment that stated, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”

But the federal government has since come up with a different position on the matter. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision to extend the federal right to marry to couples of the same sex. Then, Congress went a step further, in 2022 repealing language in federal law banning marriage between gay couples.

Because Amendment J repeals a portion of the state constitution, it only needed a simple majority vote to pass, instead of the 55 percent threshold needed when new provisions are added to the constitution.

Those in favor of Amendment J include One Colorado, an advocacy organization self-described as dedicated to advancing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Coloradans and their families.

According to Executive Director Nadine Bridges, the measure protects people, in case of a repeal of the Supreme Court’s protection of same-sex marriage – a possible outcome, she says, given the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.

“We worked to get the referred measure through the House and Senate in order for Amendment J to happen, so we fully support it,” she said in an interview. “We believe it’s one more opportunity to create equality for same-sex couples for those who choose to get married. We want to make sure we’re protecting our communities that choose to be married.”

She said the high court’s ruling on same-sex marriage could be just as impermanent as its ruling on abortion.

“The reality is, just like what happened for Roe v. Wade, we are seeing some of our justices allude to following the same precedents to take [it] down,” Bridges said. “If that happens in the state of Colorado, Amendment 43 would be in effect ... we want to make sure we are being preemptive and removing this from our constitution so that we don’t have an impact.”

She said that once couples marry, they shouldn’t have to worry if their marriage suddenly isn’t legally valid.

“We most certainly don’t want folk to have to question if something were to happen at the federal level through the Supreme Court. We don’t want anybody to be concerned, and so the best way to do that to ensure fully that same-sex marriage can continue to occur in the state is to repeal Amendment 43,” she said.

Among the groups that opposed was Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, which describes itself as “a global Christian ministry dedicated to helping families thrive,” one that provides “help and resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles.”

Focus on the Family’s spokesperson and Life Issues Analyst Nicole Hunt said the Colorado Springs-based organization’s opposition to Amendment J is based on its values.

“We believe strongly in the constitutional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman that currently exists in the Colorado Constitution,” she said. “While when the Supreme Court made marriage something that it’s actually never been, they put the entire force of the courts, government, law, behind this newly created institution of same-sex marriage.”

Another opponent was the Colorado Catholic Conference, which represents the three Catholic dioceses of Colorado.

Its Executive Director Brittany Vessely wrote in an email: "Amendment J will remove the constitutional definition of marriage as the ‘union of one man and one woman.’ Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological reality that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social science that supports the fact that children need both a mother and a father to flourish. Amendment J rejects the truth of what marriage is.”

xMogwai on November 7th, 2024 at 02:10 UTC »

America is such a funny place because you can have Colorado that is becoming a very progressive state passing same sex marriage and abortion laws to their constitution

All while sending Lauren Boebert to DC to represent one of their districts

thisisntnamman on November 7th, 2024 at 00:10 UTC »

Hawaii just made it so our state legislature can’t ban same sex marriage. It’s now protected by our state constitution.

plz-let-me-in on November 6th, 2024 at 23:44 UTC »

Even though Obergefell (the Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage) is in effect today, this matters because if Obergefell were to be overturned (as Clarence Thomas wrote that he wants to do), same-sex marriage is not guaranteed in the US by federal law!

A lot of people think the Respect for Marriage Act signed by Biden codified Obergefell, but this isn't true. The Respect for Marriage Act says that the federal government will recognize same-sex marriages, and that states have to recognize same-sex marriages performed by other states in the US, but it does not require states to actually perform them!

If Obergefell were overturned by the Supreme Court, there are about 30 states in the US where same-sex marriage would then be banned, either by state law or by the state Constitution. Colorado is now no longer one of them.