As the United States transforms from a country where same-sex marriage is largely outlawed to one in which, state by state, it is largely embraced, there are associated laws that must be updated to reflect the changing legal and cultural climate. Given the speed at which these changes are occurring, the housekeeping is understandable. It is also necessary, and in killing a measure that would clarify the interplay between civil unions and same-sex marriage in Colorado, the Legislature shirked a responsibility to its citizens.
There are 36 states in which gay marriage is legal, and with the U.S. Supreme Court promising a ruling likely to reinforce that momentum in the near future, lawmakers must ensure that the statutory underpinnings that govern marriage – and divorce – are keeping pace with the changing framework. Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, sponsored a measure to do so, but the Senate’s “kill committee,” controlled by the chamber’s Republican majority, dispatched the bill, choosing instead to wait for the Supreme Court’s ruling. It was an unnecessary delay in clearing up what could be an unnecessary mess for couples in Colorado.
Senate Bill 16 would have clarified the overlap between civil unions and marriage so as to reduce any bureaucratic redundancy the two distinct classifications now require. The bill would have provided couples now in civil unions a transition to marriage so as to eliminate the need to dissolve the former before entering into the latter. This clarification is particularly relevant for divorcing couples or those in which one partner dies. Under the current arrangement, these couples would have to settle both the union and the marriage – and their corresponding assets and liabilities – separately. Such a requirement is not only clunky and inconvenient, it could be costly and emotionally fraught – and to no justifiable end.
Waiting for a Supreme Court decision on the matter will not change the need to provide this state-level clarification. Instead, the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee merely deferred the inevitable by killing the measure. In doing so, the committee’s Republican majority sent a message about gay marriage that runs counter to both the cultural and legal environment surrounding the issue, suggesting that the Legislature is not quite ready to fully recognize marriage equality. That is an unfortunate statement for lawmakers to have made and suggests a rather disappointing level of denial.
The language governing Colorado civil unions should be clarified to match that of marriage in the state, making the transition as seamless as possible. While civil unions have served as a wholly appropriate placeholder while marriage equality laws have taken hold legislatively, by popular vote, and with growing judicial support, their role is shifting. What was once essential to moving the conversation forward is now, increasingly, a historical pivot. The associated statutes must change accordingly.
Rather than wait for what is, by most expert observers’ reckoning, a foregone conclusion from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Colorado Legislature should get ahead of the matter and smooth the transition from civil unions to marriage. Killing a measure that would ease the bureaucratic hoops that Colorado couples must endure was the wrong move; lawmakers should correct it expeditiously.
