January 26, 2013 09:02 AM UTC

Anti-Civil Unions Rally Turns Decidedly Icky

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• by: Colorado Pols

SUNDAY UPDATE: Lynn Bartels of the Denver paper gives former Sen. Ed Jones’ offensive remarks some belated attention, and background, in a blog post late yesterday evening.
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FOX 31's Eli Stokols reports on yesterday's rally to "Protect Marriage" at the state capitol:

At the event, organized by the Colorado Catholic Conference, opponents of Senate Bill 11 bemoaned the fact that it no longer contains an exemption for adoption agencies that preferred not to work with gay couples for religious reasons.

Last year’s bill, which included that exemption, would already be law if not for former House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, who decided to shut down the legislature on the session’s penultimate day as a last resort to avoid a vote and effectively kill that bill, which would have passed the full House with some GOP support.

“It doesn’t take courage to do the right thing,” McNulty said to cheers at Friday’s rally. “Marriage should be reinforced, not redefined.”

…Former state lawmaker Ed Jones took aim at the bill’s sponsor who is also McNulty’s predecessor as Speaker, Rep. Mark Ferrandino, for having a “wife” he called “Eric”, even though the lawmaker has a husband whose name is actually Greg. [Pols emphasis]

“Gays don’t have to be that way,” Jones said, ignoring overwhelming science that states otherwise.

We've heard from multiple sources in attendance that former Sen. Ed Jones' remarks at yesterday's rally were far and away the most offensive–openly invoking his race to disparage not just civil unions, but gays and lesbians in general as unworthy of rights. That said, we're unaware of any attempt made by organizer Dan Caplis, or anyone else including the numerous elected officials in attendance to repudiate Jones' remarks, or this over-the-top insult against Speaker Mark Ferrandino in particular. To brand this event as an embrace of exactly the sort of bigotry that so many moderate Republicans have warned the party to reject is a considerable understatement.

We don't understand why nothing about any of this unvarnished hate speech appears in today's Denver Post story about the same rally–which says only that Jones called on Gov. John Hickenlooper to "act on his moderate credentials" and veto the bill. As Stokols' more thorough reporting shows, there was nothing "moderate" about this.

What happened yesterday should be called out, not sanitized.