Colorado voters are being asked Nov. 7 to consider two very different ballot measures that address the status of same-sex couples.
As different as these measures are, they do not conflict, and we envision that voters may choose to provide a Colorado compromise on the issue.
Referendum I, called The Colorado Domestic Partnership Benefits and Responsibilities Act, would provide same-sex couples with basic legal rights.
The measure does not allow same-sex couples to marry and would leave the existing state law limiting marriage to a man and a woman intact. But it would give gay and lesbian couples certain legal rights long enjoyed by heterosexuals, including the right to make medical decisions for incapacitated partners, access to health-care and family-leave benefits and protection of their inheritance rights.
Extending such basic rights to non-traditional couples is long overdue. The world has changed a great deal from the days when all families were expected to conform to television’s “Ozzie and Harriet” image of a full-time male breadwinner and a full-time female homemaker placidly presiding over 2.3 children. As divorce and remarriage, single-parent families and same-sex relationships have changed the template of the American family, society and the law have struggled to adapt.
For example, state laws long stigmatized children born out of wedlock as “illegitimate” and denied them equal legal standing with their half-brothers and half-sisters. Gradually, such discrimination has given way to fairer treatment.
But Colorado law does not provide same-sex couples with legal standing. Couples don’t always have the right to visit their loved ones in a hospital, no say in end-of-life decisions nor even the right to make funeral arrangements for a dead partner.
Some opponents of Referendum I claim that these basic rights can be secured by filing a maze of documents ranging from living wills to durable powers of attorney, etc. That’s partially true, though there are clear limits, including the right to health and pension benefits. But forcing gay couples to navigate such a serpentine legal path is itself a form of discrimination – a fact that the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in its 1956 school desegregation decision. Never mind that the treatment received by racial minorities then or gay couples today is in fact far from truly equal. It is the very fact of singling out one group for separate treatment that stigmatizes it as inferior.
Referendum I would break new legal ground by clarifying both the rights and responsibilities of both partners when a gay couple breaks up – especially in regard to any children in their care. Protecting children in such cases is so crucial that even the religious conservatives seeking to write a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution specifically wrote their Amendment 43 to co-exist with Referendum I. We commend them for showing at least that much tolerance, but still urge a “no” vote on 43, for two reasons.
First, a constitutional amendment is unnecessary because state law already limits marriage to one man and one woman.
Second, elevating the statutory ban on gay marriage to a constitutional provision would diminish the state’s fundamental governing document. The Constitution should be a place to impose limits on government and enshrine individual rights. It should never be a vehicle for withholding rights.
We urge voters to say “yes” on Referendum I and “no” on Initiative 43.
