As a teenage boy growing up Gay and closeted, you look for any way to identify with other boys. Because I was never very good at sports, I was thrilled when I was selected as a delegate to Boys State in 1969.
Sponsored by the American Legion, Boys State has been in existence since 1949 and serves to expose young men to the rights, privileges, duties and responsibilities of a franchised citizen.
In my case, Boys State involved a trip to Denver, a tour of the Capitol, and practical instruction on the function of state and local governments. Delegates learned about the role of the state legislature in crafting laws and about the democratic process that led to the election of the lawmakers who serve as the peoples elected representatives.
Boys State taught me that every voter could affect the laws of the State by working to elect likeminded candidates.
The direct election process and the natural accountability of politicians to the voters were designed to insure that the people would always have access to their government.
Even though the frame workers of the Constitution sought to guarantee people access to their government, they did not guarantee that a voter’s issues would always be addressed. But access to government did guarantee at least in principle, that every voter would at least be heard.
Fast forward to 1975; as a closeted man seeking to identify with men, I married a woman and we divorced in 1999 after twenty-three years of marriage.
After my children were on their own, I filed a petition in El Paso County District Court to reduce my maintenance (alimony) payments to my ex-wife.
As expected, my ex-wife objected to the payment reduction even though I was unemployed and living on credit from my same-sex partner. The reason she gave the Court for her objection that November in 2006 would have been shocking on it’s own, but it was even more implausible given recent events.
Nineteen days earlier, the voters had adopted Amendment 43 to the Colorado Constitution defining marriage as being only between one man and one woman.
This did not deter my ex-wife from declaring to the Court that my partner and I were “married” because we had held a Commitment Ceremony in 2004.
The Court agreed with my ex-wife’s assertions and proceeded to impute my partner’s income and assets to me as if jointly owned, placing my partner’s income and assets at risk of seizure. The Court then denied my petition to modify spousal maintenance.
I appealed the district court’s decision to the Colorado Court of Appeals and to my disbelief; the Appeals Court sided with the district court on the grounds of judicial discretion in 2007.
The Appeals Court took the ruling a step further by citing existing case law in which they referred to my partner and I as “spouses” in direct violation of Amendment 43. The Colorado Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Ordinarily, my partner and I would have welcomed the “spouses” designation since we have been together for ten years, are registered in Denver County as domestic partners and were legally married in San Francisco in 2008.
However like it or not, Colorado law clearly states that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. The Court’s ruling treating my partner and I as “spouses”, unfairly obligated us to the responsibilities of marriage, but still denied us all the rights and privileges associated with marriage.
In addition, because the Court chose not to consider legal contracts defining finances and living arrangements between my partner and I, it raised the specter of garnishment and liens directed against my partner’s income and assets, and greatly complicated the issue of joint ownership of property in the future.
My partner and I considered suing the State of Colorado in Federal Court to either accept the Appeals Court’s implied redefinition of marriage, or to bar the courts from holding same-sex couples to the same standard as married couples.
Since neither one of us were too excited about the expense involved with the litigation of a successful lawsuit, I recalled my Boys State training and we decided to seek a legislative remedy instead.
This very simple solution would have prevented the courts from obligating same-sex couples to the responsibilities of marriage as long as state law existed to deprive them of the rights and privileges associated with marriage.
In November 2008 thinking that our State Senator and State Representative would at least listen to our proposal, we began to call them. We left messages and wrote them letters all to no avail! Neither one ever called back or responded to my letters.
This was stunning given that my partner had been our State Senator’s campaign manager when she was first elected to the legislature in 2002, and we both worked actively last election cycle on their campaigns for re-election.
Abandoned and shut out of the legislative process by the Democratic Party, my partner and I decided to appeal to Republican lawmakers for legislation to reign in judicial discretion on the subject of marriage.
Absent legislation, the courts will continue to overlook the will of the people as they slowly redefine marriage in Colorado.
The courts will also continue to mandate unfair treatment to same-sex couples by holding them to the same legal standards as married couples, with little or no recourse.
Ironically, my partner and I find ourselves in the improbable position of being a Gay couple seeking to strengthen Amendment 43 in order to protect the rights of same-sex couples!
It has been five months and neither my State Senator nor my State Representative has responded to my calls and letters. The net effect has been that, my partner and I have been effectively disenfranchised by our own lawmakers, and they did it just by ignoring us!
Listening to and then rejecting our arguments would have been one thing, but for an elected official to simply ignore his constituents flies against the basic principles of democracy and our system of a representative government.
In the Constitution, the framers just assumed that every elected official would operate with integrity, common courtesy and professionalism and would at the very least respond to their constituents.
With the current legislative session over and with my telephone yet to ring, it looks increasingly like my partner and I may have to sue after all. They sure didn’t cover this at Boys State.
I would like to submit the following for your consideration. I am an activist and a paralegal, and this story continues to grow and to morph into something new every day.
For your information, Representative Andy Kerr and Senator Betty Boyd are the unnamed lawmakers that I reference.
Gabe Martinez lives in Lakewood. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
