Colorado Civil Unions Bill Heads To Gov. Hickenlooper

Finally! As expected, the Colorado legislature gave final approval to a civil unions bill today and sent it off to to Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper, who has promised to sign it into law. The bill had passed the senate last month by a vote of 21 to 14 and in the lower House (which has an openly gay man as Speaker) it passed by a vote of 39 to 26.

Colorado will join California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois and Oregon with laws that give same-sex couples all the same state-based rights and responsibilitiues of civil marriage while calling it something else ("civil union" or "domestic partnership"). In a recent brief in the Hollingsworth v. Perry case, the Department of Justice is arguing before the United States Supreme court that such laws are discriminatory and should be considered legally equivalent to marriages in fact.

Hat/tip to Think Progress