2 gay-friendly bills taking effect

1 allows partners to adopt; other bans work discrimination

THE GAZETTE

August 2, 2007 - 11:42PM

DENVER - A pair of bills allowing for adoption by same sex couples and banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation become law today.

Advocates and opponents say the laws are unlikely to have much of an impact right away, except for gay and lesbian workers and their partners.

The two sides agree, however, that there could be more significant long-term effects from the measures, which were among the most controversial in the 2007 legislative session.

Ryan Acker, director of the Pikes Peak Gay and Lesbian Community Center, said he hopes Senate Bill 25 and House Bill 1330 will lay the foundation for a society that is more tolerant of gays and lesbians. Laws affect the way people behave more than pressure from special-interest groups does, Acker said.

"When there's legislation passed, then that kind of starts the ball rolling for social change in the future," Acker said.

Rep. Amy Stephens, a Monument Republican who led the charge against the adoption bill, said she fears these laws will encourage legislators to flout the will of voters more often. Both issues, she said, were addressed in some way in last year's Referendum I, a gay-rights initiative defeated by 52 percent of voters.

"The people spoke against it, and they got rolled. And they got rolled because the Democrats were funded largely by homosexual activists," Stephens said.

The measures, which join about 90 others in becoming law three months after the final day of the legislative session, were sponsored by House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, and Denver Democrat Sen. Jen Veiga, the only openly lesbian member of the Legislature. Neither of the laws deals exclusively with homosexuals.

Senate Bill 25 makes it illegal for an employer to hire, fire, promote or demote someone based on their sexual orientation, exempting religious groups that receive no public funding. It creates the same restrictions based on someone's religion, exempting religious organizations again.

House Bill 1330 allows for the adoption of a child by a second parent who is not married to the child's legal guardian. That can be another member of a same-sex couple, an unmarried heterosexual partner or a relative of a young single mother.

Gay and lesbian activists hailed Colorado's move to join 19 other states in instituting the nondiscrimination law and 10 other states in passing the adoption regulations. Equal Rights Colorado held a news conference Thursday at which Mindy Barton, legal director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Colorado, lauded them as "two great steps toward equality."

The number of lawsuits or new adoptions that spring from the bills is a matter of speculation.

Barton said about 21 percent of the calls that come into her center's legal hotline — about 73 a year — deal with employment discrimination, but she doesn't know how that will translate into court cases.

Erica Johnson, a Denver attorney who specializes in estate planning for nontraditional families, said there are "a lot of families" in Colorado that could be affected by the adoption law. But she does not know of any that plan to be the first to take advantage of it, especially since the State Court Administrator's Office has yet to finalize the paperwork that must be filled out for the new adoptions, she said.

The next goal for the gay and lesbian community is to pass nondiscrimination laws applying to public housing and to accommodations such as hotels, Barton said.

She expects that will come up during the 2008 legislative session.

Madden hopes the emotional fight that arose over the bills this year is done, "because really it's not going to change society, and it's not going to be very noticeable except in the families affected by this."

Stephens, however, thinks the laws have created enough anger that someone will attempt to repeal them via the ballot, though she added that she is not a part of any such effort.

CONTACT THE WRITER: (303)837-0613 or ed.[censored]