Colorado voters to decide fate of blocked marriage amendment at the ballot box

DENVER (OSV News) — Among the ballot measures voters will consider in November, Colorado voters will decide whether to keep a provision in their state constitution banning same-sex marriage that was rendered moot by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing such unions nationwide.

Voters in Colorado had approved an amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman in 2006, but that provision has been defunct since the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

Amendment J would repeal the 2006 marriage amendment. Advocates of Amendment J, sometimes referred to as the “Freedom to Marry” amendment, argue that removing the 2006 provision’s language is necessary in the event Obergefell were ever overturned. They cited the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022, which overturned the high court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and its related jurisprudence holding abortion to be a constitutional right. In that case, Justice Clarence Thomas also suggested in a concurring opinion that the court could revisit Obergefell.

Although the issue of same-sex marriage has undergone a dramatic shift in public opinion in the span of a few decades — most Americans now support it — the Catholic Church teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman, a lifelong partnership they establish that is ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of their children.

For this reason, the church holds that marriage between members of the same sex is not possible and it does not endorse marriage-like same-sex unions. However, Pope Francis authorized guidelines in December allowing Catholic priests to discern blessing a same-sex or other unmarried couple that spontaneously approach them as long as it is not a formal liturgical blessing and does not create the impression that the Catholic Church is blessing the union as if it were a sacramental marriage.

The Colorado Catholic Conference did not respond to a request for comment on Amendment J.

The proposed amendment is one of 14 referred and initiated measures that will be on ballots statewide in Colorado Nov. 5. Among them is also Amendment 79, which would codify abortion as a right in the Colorado Constitution.

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