Source: Denver Post
Landlords, hotels, stores and restaurants in Colorado would be barred from discriminating against gays and lesbians under a bill that passed a Senate committee Wednesday.
Senate Bill 200, sponsored by Sen. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, won approval in the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee despite objections from religious groups.
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The measure, passed on a 4-2 party-line vote, would extend to gays and lesbians the same sweeping civil rights protections in housing and public accommodations that already prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin.
Gov. Bill Ritter last year signed into law a measure that bans workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Veiga, who is gay, told the committee Wednesday that her bill this year would expand on that protection. It would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, places of public accommodation, consumer credit, labor unions and school enrollment, among other areas.
She said 14 other states have similar laws prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations against gays and lesbians.
Gay-rights advocates who testified in favor of the bill were joined by some traditional civil rights organizations that supported the measure.
Monica Rosenbluth, a board member for the Mountain States chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, said the bill would "send an important message to all Coloradans that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not acceptable."
The Colorado Bar Association also testified in favor of the bill, as did the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.
Religious conservatives have denounced the bill.
Jim Pfaff, president of Colorado Family Action, a political arm of Focus on the Family, said the bill would spark legal battles. He pointed to a New Mexico case where a photographer who refused to shoot a gay couple's commitment ceremony on religious grounds faced a discrimination complaint before the New Mexico Human Rights Commission.
Full article: Addition to gay rights advances - The Denver Post