Utah now has it over Colorado when it comes to civil rights. Who would have imagined?
No thanks to state lawmakers in the Beehive State, Utah this week became the 18th state to ensure the equal rights of gay citizens and permit same-sex marriage. The change came at the hands of a federal judge who ruled that Utah’s 2004 ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.
Of course it is. Such bans do nothing more than discriminate against homosexuals. After recent enlightenment and changes by the U.S. military and even the U.S. Supreme Court, striking down a federal ban on gay marriage, and similar moves by 17 states before Utah, the judge had nowhere to go under points of law but to end that state’s odious ban.
While it’s all cheers and good news for Utah, it speaks poorly for Colorado, which still suffers under a misguided and ill-gained constitutional prohibition of gay marriage.
Colorado’s growing and vocal progressive population and political leaders enacted a civil unions measure earlier this year, trying to appease all sides of the issue. In the end, gay couples still lose because the “fix” brings none of the important gains in federal benefits because they would have to be married. Opponents of gay marriage lose because the defining moral issue was won by gay-rights activists: homosexuals deserve and have been granted rights.
This week, an Aurora man and a Colorado Springs woman who have seen how unjust the Colorado ban on gay marriage is, announced they would postpone their petition drive to ask voters this fall to repeal the state ban. While they recognize that the situation is volatile and going the same way as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reality is that the difficulty in collecting the required 86,000 signatures to get the question on the state ballot is overwhelming for those without deep pockets. They hope that if the courts don’t rectify this soon, they can come back for the 2016 election with an army of Colorado residents angry that this state is still in what will then likely be the minority.
It’s time to bring the inevitable to a quicker and fairer end. Colorado, too, will end its offensive gay-marriage ban. It’s best for all concerned to do it now. When the Colorado Legislature convenes in early January, one of the first jobs lawmakers have is to enact a referendum to state voters asking them to repeal the constitutional ban on gay marriage. Even if Colorado or federal courts do the job in ending the ban before voters do, it will be important for the state to rectify the mistake Colorado voters made eight years ago.
In the last few years, a growing number of states have either by design or default permitted gay marriages or civil unions. With the landmark this year, California became the 13th state to legitimize gay marriage.
The tide has turned in America when it comes to the rights of homosexuals. Those rights are recognized by the U.S. military, by a vast collection of companies and municipalities, by major religions, by a growing number of states, by the federal government, the country’s top court — and now Utah. As it was with the demise of slavery and guarantee of civil rights for racial minorities, there can be no turning back.
People get but one opportunity for their American pursuit of happiness, and “some day” just isn’t good enough. It’s time for state lawmakers from both political parties to lead Colorado residents into rectifying this hurtful chapter in Colorado history.
Government recognition of any marriage or any marriage rights, responsibilities or benefits in American law is unconstitutional.
The constitutional support for the argument is outlined in the article:
Opinion: Marriage Rights and the US Constitution.
Arm yourself with the fair, equitable and constitutional solution to the marriage rights issue.
I agree that the state (at every level) should NOT be involved with marriage.
I opposed the civil unions bill/law for this reason. Halfway is/was not good enough.
https://www.tanbooks.com/doct/church_sodomy.htm
““For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. . . . Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.”—Romans 1:26-27, 32”
Saint Catherine of Siena, a religious mystic of the 14th century, relays words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacred ministers, He says: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] . . . but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them. . . . It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.”
Saint Bernardine of Siena, a preacher of the fifteenth century, makes an accurate psychological analysis of the consequences of the homosexual vice. The illustrious Franciscan writes: “No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God. . . . Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything. Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor. . . . Someone who lived practicing the vice of sodomy will suffer more pains in Hell than anyone else, because this is the worst sin that there is.”
Only Judges have forced this, writing own legislation – based on some glimmer they believe authorizes this. Folks have to remember difference between ‘Tolerance and Acceptance’. I tolerate all the different life styles since I cannot change them, nor want o, but I do not have to accept them when they violate my life style, religion, experience, and beliefs. I will even associate with them in public places and events, but I will not accept their life style into my home. I still have the right of association as my free choice. I have lost two young grandchildren to death at 46 hours and at 10 years due to health, but I will not accept this style in my home-family. Had experience of Niece married to loser who left her when their daughter was 12, causing them to be tested for next 5 years, and forced move to new locality, where school children and neighbors did not know the story. She is now married to a real man, her daughter is married with 3 children. They cannot trust grandpa to be alone with those 3 young grandchildren, with him trying tell them of the exciting life of same sex love. Shame on him, and society.
Also Duck Dynasty brought out and focused that majority of US still do not accept this, but tolerate it. By the way, that loser, has buried 3 significant others from AIDS, and works in eastern hospital. Think about that for a moment. Example of Liberal-Progressive law and judges, whose decisions in past 20 years leave much to be criticized.
Throw the judge out.