Colorado is just a hairs-breadth from passing SB 172, a bill to grant same sex civil unions. Over time the voters of Colorado have been brought around to see that marriage equality is a basic right, and polls show now that 70% of Coloradans support that. The Colorado State Senate has just passed a Civil Unions bill, and there are enough votes in the house to pass the it, and the governor has said he'll sign it. Finally Colorado is poised to join the other ten states that have civil unions or gay marriage!

Of course there is a catch: the bill may never even make it to a vote in the Colorado House.

That's because Republicans in the state house have a one-vote majority over Democrats, so the Speaker of the House, Frank McNulty, could kill the bill with procedural tricks. All he has to do is send the bill to a committee where a majority of the committee doesn't support the bill, and let them vote to "table the motion indefinitely." To do so he'd have to override the will of the people, the majority opinion of both state houses and the governor, and set himself up as a one-man barrier to equality for Colorado's gay and lesbian couples.

One man shouldn't deny equality to all Colorado's gay and lesbian couples, which are a basic right. Tell Speaker McNulty to make sure that SB 172 gets a fair hearing, and comes up for a vote.

(Photo by Ludovic Bertron)