The only kind of marriage valid in Colorado, according to the state constitution, is between a man and a woman.
A provision added to the Colorado Constitution by voters in 2006 says that “only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.” Amendment J, placed on the November ballot by the Legislature this year, would strike that phrase.
The amendment requires a simple majority vote to pass, not the 55% needed to pass amendments that are adding words to the state constitution. Here’s what you need to know about Amendment J, how it would affect the status quo and who is backing the initiative.
Amendment J would repeal the provision in the Colorado Constitution about a “union between one man and one woman.” It would not add any new language.
For supporters, the amendment is a step toward repairing Colorado’s history against same-sex marriage.
In the 1990s, state lawmakers twice passed legislation banning same-sex marriage. Both bills were vetoed by former Gov. Roy Romer, a Democrat. The Legislature tried a third time in 2000, and Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, signed a law banning same-sex marriage.
Then, in 2006, Colorado voters passed Amendment 43, by 56% to 44%, adding the provision to the state constitution that recognized only marriages “between one man and one woman.”
Nearly 20 years later, most Coloradans are supportive of same-sex marriage. According to the latest Pew Research Center poll, 62% of adults in the state support same-sex marriage while 31% do not.
Same-sex marriage is legal and protected under a state law passed in 2013 and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2015. So why do proponents of Amendment J feel it’s necessary?
The short answer is the unpredictability of the U.S. Supreme Court.
“While our protection is in place today, due to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, none can predict what the future holds,” state Sen. Joann Ginal, a Fort Collins Democrat, told fellow lawmakers at the Capitol this year when she proposed the ballot measure.
In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges, extending the right of same-sex marriage across the country. This federal ruling supersedes the wording in the Colorado Constitution.
However, two U.S. Supreme Court justices – Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – have indicated that they would like to revisit the 2015 decision. If it were overturned, the legality of same-sex marriage would revert to states.
The ballot measure was proposed by Freedom to Marry Colorado, a coalition that includes One Colorado, Rose Community Foundation, Rocky Mountain Equality and other LGBTQ allies and groups.
Lawmakers, on a bipartisan vote, passed the resolution as “Protecting the Freedom to Marry Act,” sending it to the ballot. The state House and Senate must each pass a proposed constitutional amendment by a two-thirds vote in order to get it on the ballot. It passed 46-14 in the House and 29-5 in the Senate.
Ginal, the first open lesbian to represent Fort Collins at the state level, became a lawmaker in 2013, the same year the Legislature approved the Civil Union Act, which allows two adults – regardless of gender – the same legal protections that apply to a marriage. That measure passed 21-14 in the Senate and 39-26 in the House, both with bipartisan support, Ginal said.
When she was growing up, “women loving women was a crime,” Ginal said just before the Senate State Affairs Committee passed the resolution on a 3-2, partisan vote, sending it to the full Senate. “Many times, I felt alone, scared to share, that I was the only one out there that had those kinds of feelings.”
In her 20s and 30s, when Ginal worked in health care and teaching college classes, she pretended she was straight and brought gay male friends to work functions and introduced them as her boyfriends, she said. Ginal said she didn’t truly come out as gay until she ran for office.
She advocated for giving “voters the voice to repeal this unconstitutional language, once and for all.”
“It’s time to fix this,” she said.
The Colorado Catholic Conference is opposed to the ballot measure, saying that the future of the state depends on government policies that “support, not undermine, the reality of marriage.”
“Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social science that supports the reality that children need both a mother and a father to flourish,” the conference said.
Freedom to Marry Colorado, the issue committee supporting Amendment J, had raised more than $400,000 through Sept. 25.
The Marriage Defense Fund at Amalgamated Foundation gave the group $150,000, while the Rose Community Foundation has given $90,000, the One Colorado Foundation has given $95,000 and the Human Rights Campaign has given $10,000.
There is no organized opposition to the ballot measure.
