Columns

Obviously, words cannot heal or explain the terrible events of last week. But I think President Obama made some decent and heartfelt remarks on the matter. Here’s what he said:

All indications continue to suggest that Colorado is emerging from the recession ahead of the rest of the country. In just one day last week, the state’s economists reported that revenue estimates were almost a quarter of a billion dollars ahead of earlier projections; it was revealed that our share of national tourism spending had gone up for the first time in 20 years; and the value of oil produced in Colorado charged past natural gas revenues.

In the waning hours of the legislative session earlier this month, leadership in the Colorado House of Representatives used procedural delaying tactics to kill a civil-unions bill that otherwise had the votes to pass. In a special session less than a week later, the same bill was assigned to a different committee, resulting in it being killed a second time — again, when it had the votes to pass the whole House.

As work in the state House of Representatives ground to a halt on the second to last night of the legislative session last week to ensure that no vote would be taken on legislation to create civil unions, I found myself reflecting on the role my hometown of Steamboat Springs played in the debate on same-sex unions way back in 1975.