Voters agree to remove same-sex marriage ban from Colorado’s constitution

Amendment J, which strips language from Colorado’s constitution that declared marriage to be valid only if it is between a man and a woman, passed decisively Tuesday night.

Voters enshrined the ban in the state constitution in 2006, adding an amendment that said: “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”

But the federal government has since taken a different stance on the matter. In 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision to extend the federal right to marry to same-sex couples. Then Congress went a step further, repealing in 2022 language in federal law that banned marriage between same-sex couples.

Because Amendment J repeals part of the state constitution, it only needed a simple majority to pass, rather than the 55 percent threshold needed when new provisions are added to the constitution.

Those in favor of Amendment J include One Colorado, an advocacy group that describes itself as dedicated to promoting equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Coloradans and their families.

According to executive director Nadine Bridges, the measure protects people in the event of a repeal of the Supreme Court’s protections for same-sex marriage — a possible outcome, she says, given the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.

“We worked to get the referred measure through the House and Senate for Amendment J to happen, so we fully support it,” she said in an interview. “We believe this is another opportunity to bring equality to same-sex couples for those who choose to get married. We want to make sure we protect our communities who choose to get married.”

She said the high court’s ruling on same-sex marriage could be as permanent as its ruling on abortion.

“The reality is, like what happened with Roe v. Wade, we’re seeing some of our justices allude to following those same precedents to take (it) down,” Bridges said. “If that happens in the state of Colorado, Amendment 43 would be in effect … we want to make sure we’re preemptive and remove this from our constitution so we don’t have an impact.”

She said that once couples get married, they should not be worried if their marriage is suddenly not legally valid.

“We certainly don’t want people to question whether something should happen at the federal level through the Supreme Court. We don’t want anyone to be concerned, and so the best way to do that to fully ensure that same-sex marriage can continue to occur in the state, is to repeal Amendment 43,” she said.

Among the groups that opposed was Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, which describes itself as “a global Christian ministry dedicated to helping families thrive,” one that provides “help and resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values ​​based on biblical principles.”

Focus on the Family advocate and life issues analyst Nicole Hunt said the Colorado Springs-based organization’s opposition to Amendment J is based on its values.

“We strongly believe in the constitutional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman that currently exists in the Colorado Constitution,” she said. “Whereas when the Supreme Court made marriage something it never actually was, they put the whole force of the courts, of government, of the law behind this newly created institution of same-sex marriage.”

Another opponent was the Colorado Catholic Conference, which represents the three Catholic dioceses of Colorado.

Its executive director Brittany Vessely wrote in an email: “Amendment J would remove the constitutional definition of marriage as ‘the union of a man and a woman.’ Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological reality that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social science that supports the fact that children need both a mother and a father to flourish the truth of what marriage is.”