COLORADO: Governor Vetoes Gay Rights Bill

For the second consecutive year, Republican Governor Bill Owens has vetoed a gay rights bill which would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the state's non-discrimination employment statutes. Last year when he vetoed it he said that the bill might force employers to give partnership benefits to same-sex couples (like that would be a bad thing!) This year he came up with an equally nonsensical excuse for vetoing this important LGBT civil rights bill:

As stated in my veto letter of nearly identical legislation last year, I believe that S.B. 081, though intended to protect employees from discrimination in the workplace, is unnecessary and may in fact result in harmful unintended consequences.

Colorado law already protects individuals from being fired because of their sexual orientation. In 1990, the General Assembly passed the "off duty conduct statute," C.R.S. § 24-34-402.5. This law protects all Colorado employees from being fired as a result of lawful conduct away from the workplace during non-working hours. The Colorado courts have ruled that homosexual employees who claim to have been fired because of their off duty sexual conduct already have the right to sue their employers for money damages under this statute.

S.B. 081 has the potential to be costly for Colorado businesses due to an expansion of their tort liability. Employment lawsuits are time consuming and expensive. The average employment lawsuit takes years to resolve. It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees and court costs to defend employment discrimintation(sic!) lawsuits, even those without merit.

Good grief! The Colorado Governor's press office can't even SPELL discrimination correctly! No wonder they think it doesn't exist. The openly lesbian state senator and main sponsor of SB 81, Jennifer Veiga (D-Denver), was not surprised by the veto. She was quoted by the Denver Post as being "really irritated" by the governor's action.

The veto of the LGBT civil rights bill occurs in the context of a huge public debate about homosexuality and public policy in Colorado. In the Fall, Colorado voters will be asked to decide a number of gay-related ballot propositions: whether marriage should be reserved to heterosexual couples, to enact sweeping comprehensive domestic partnership legislation or to deny and state-related benefits to same-sex couples.