Denver, Colo., Apr 4, 2011 / 17:28 pm
Colorado legislators who killed a civil unions bill “did the right thing” and deserve voters’ thanks, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver said. He warned that the proposal would increase pressure for “gay marriage” and will likely return “whether Coloradans like it or not.”
Opponents of the bill acted in the face of “unfriendly media coverage and heavy political pressure,” the archbishop wrote in his weekly column for the Denver Catholic Register. Tabling the bill “took courage, especially in an environment of bitter criticism.”
The proposal, S.B. 172, would have created civil unions for homosexual and unmarried heterosexual couples. It failed in the Republican-controlled Colorado House Judiciary Committee by a party line vote of 6-5.
Archbishop Chaput criticized civil unions, saying the basic rights of homosexual persons are already guaranteed. The civil unions debate, he said, is not about love or personal equality, which civil unions ensure no better than marriage.
“The civil unions debate is finally about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience,” he wrote.