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February 03, 2009 06:13 PM UTC

Calling Shawn Mitchell's Bluff?

  • 25 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

A very interesting maneuver by the Dems, as the Denver Post reports:

A bill that would make it easier for unwed couples to plan their estates and share benefits in times of tragedy is certain to touch off a gay-rights debate at the Capitol.

Unwed couples can already designate each other as emergency decision makers, ensure that property goes to their partners if they die and list each other as health insurance beneficiaries.

But the process for sharing these and other benefits is a costly and complicated series of contracts, said bill sponsor Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver.

His bill, to be filed later this week, would give couples the option of dropping by their local county clerk’s office and filling out a check-off form stating which rights they want their partners to have.

It’s a benefit to same-sex couples, and Ferrandino expects a fight, but he said others would benefit as well.

“It’s going to be controversial, but if you think about it, it shouldn’t be,” Ferrandino said. “It’s something that’s smart government policy to try to encourage people to plan ahead.”

This might be a pretty smart end run around all of the emotionally manipulative grandstanding on the issue of “marriage.” What if you could give any consenting pair of people a way to take care of each other in times of need? Everything from medical to legal to estate issues, with simplified processes that have a better chance of surviving court challenges? Simple personal rights that should be available to anyone–aging siblings, widows, or even, yes, gays and lesbians? That doesn’t sound very controversial, does it?

And since it’s not really a controversial idea, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Republicans actually proposed the same thing a couple of years ago–none other than family values arch-conservative Sen. Shawn Mitchell himself, as the Post continues:

In 2006, socially conservative lawmakers like Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, proposed similar legislation allowing so-called “designated beneficiary agreements.”

At the time, a ballot battle loomed over Referendum I, an initiative to legalize domestic partnerships and confer spousal rights on committed, same-sex couples.

The bill was seen by critics as a way to undercut the initiative and by proponents as a common-sense way to grant atypical households some basic rights.

Unfortunately, if there’s one thing we’ve learned so far this session from Senate Republicans, it’s this–pay no attention to anything they might have said previous to the moment you are speaking with them.

The intent of his 2006 bill was “not to compete with or dilute marriage,” Mitchell said…

We read you loud and clear, Sen. Mitchell. It’s all about the intent. Or in this case, the ulterior motives–the current sponsors would not seem to have any, their motivations are obvious. And since they’re basically using Mitchell’s own language against him, his backpedaling opposition tells you what his motivations weren’t.

For the proponents, it’s a gamble that rests on who wins the battle over the bill’s public impression. If it’s perceived as a “pro-gay” measure it will add to Focus Action’s scare tactic arsenal and make a lot of Democrats nervous about supporting it. If, on the other hand, supporters can make clear that it’s not a concession to the “homosexual lobby” but a bill with broad and pragmatic applications–and that Republicans have proposed just about everything in the bill themselves as morally conscionable alternatives to “redefining marriage?”

We’d call that a winning frame.

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25 thoughts on “Calling Shawn Mitchell’s Bluff?”

    1. This discussion is a bit off because Pol’s “reporting” is off.

      The new bill has similarities to the one I sponsored, but with a major difference I told Pat Steadman I couldn’t support before the bill got introduced:

      My proposal, SB 166, covered parties/households that can’t marry. Ferrandino’s bill includes heterosexual couples who can marry.

      One approach offers practical benefits to households that couldn’t readily obtain them. (I disagree with Pam Bennett below) The new bill, in contrast, dilutes and undermines marriage by offering couples who might marry a simpler, less committing, economic union.

      Take out that provision, and I could well support it. (Not sure because I hear the new bill does a few other substantive things I didn’t support back in ’06.)

      Shawn

      1. The new bill, in contrast, dilutes and undermines marriage by offering couples who might marry a simpler, less committing, economic union.

        Are you suggesting that you want people who are not really ready to get married to do so just to get benefits?  Silly me, being a romantic and all that seems a bit backwards…

      2. If you exclude people who could technically get married that eliminates the benefit for people who could use it. Say an old widow who takes care of her elderly widower neighbor. She wants to be able to visit him in the hospital and pays his bills for him but she doesn’t want to screw up his kids’ or her kids’ inheritance. Never mind that they aren’t actually a couple, just very good friends for 50 years.

        I’m describing a real life scenario by the way. My grandmother took care of her neighbor, a retired Rocky Flats worker with cancer for almost a decade. And she had to spend thousands of dollars for the privilege since he didn’t have the money to pay a lawyer to draw up the paperwork and his deadbeat kids wouldn’t lift a finger.  

        1. That Mitchell’s intent was ever anything but outmaneuvering/undermining the “homosexual agenda” of Referendum I. You think he cared about old widows and their widower neighbors? Not so much.

          Not to mention his exclusion of heterosexual couples is a giant-ass equal protection landmine, guaranteeing that if by some miracle Mitchell’s bill had passed it would have been euthanized by the courts before anybody got a chance to use it. Mitchell’s not stupid, he knew what he was doing, in 2006 and (conveniently) today too.

      3. …according to your reasoning, that is, Shawn Mitchell’s reasoning:  giving gay couples some of the benefits of marriage will NOT undermine marriage, but giving straight couples some of the same benefits of marriage WILL undermine marriage.

        That’s a good campaign slogan, Shawn!

    2. Ted Haggard’s National Association of Evangelicals was the group that originally fronted the opposition campaign while the bill was still working its way through the legislative process. Remember, Haggards public reputation at that time was something like Rick Warren’s–the moderate wing of the far right of the far right, not entirely opposed to the idea of global warming and environmental stewardship. At the time it was speculated that Haggard took an active role in 2006’s electoral issues in order to prevent the fracture of the religious right.

      And we see that with Haggard’s fall and the deaths of D James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell that the religious right has become a shadow of its former self. The Crystal Cathedral is about to be foreclosed upon and Focus on the Family is laying off scores of people.

      Now the Mormon Church has become the torch-bearer for all things anti-gay, and they seem to have given up the idea of appearing moderate on this issue. It’s amazing what can change in 2 years.

  2. On a less serious note, Saccone has some of his blogs published in the Sentinel today, but its not online.  In it Wadhams is boasting about the great Republic bench.  His examples include Penry, Gardner, McNulty and our own Hasan.  Go Team–get those gays!  Drown the government!  Gut regulations you voted unanimously to put into place two years ago!  Stop bad people very bad people scary people very bad, scary terrorist foreign people from coming to Colorado!

  3. So you dont like the bill when Mithcell sponsors it, but you do when a Dem does?  Sounds like crap.  Good job Pols.

    Additionaly “Calling his bluff” would be supporting his bills, not rewritting something that resembles his work and trying to back him into a corner.  Does this mean Ferrandino does not actually support the bill he wrote, and he is just playing politics?

    Real nice.  Please support and encourage more of this in our government.  It is really helping us (us includes gays by the way).  Party line crap Pols!

    2. I think the point is that Ferrandino does support this bill, as should everyone else in the legislature.  Now, a lot of Democrats would clearly rather just pass gay marriage or civil unions flat out, but this is a way to accomplish a lot of the the same obvious goals in terms of basic civil rights, while dodging the whole fight over what marriage means.

      Frankly, this is politics at its best; understanding all views on the issue, and finding a solution to at least some of the problem, in a way that doesn’t antagonize anyone or attack their values or beliefs.  I hope that in addition, there is some change in people’s beliefs and values, but that doesn’t come from the government.  If people are to grow more tolerant, they will do it because of who they meet in their communities.  The best the government can do is try to ensure equal rights, in a way that doesn’t divide people and pit them against each other.

      This approach has been proposed and supported by Shawn Mitchell, James Dobson, and now apparently a good number of Democrats.  It’s been a good idea the whole time.

      It remains to see whether the same Republicans, who used to support this idea when they were afraid of Ref I and knew this would fail anyway, will continue to support it now that it has a chance of succeeding.  

  4. Ok, so the problem is that Mitchell’s bill failed a few years ago and now a better bill is going to the hopper and it is a bad thing?

    Strange logic.

    Mitchell’s bill had dead zones in it.  All it did was create a high price for existing legal products.  It purposely did not expand or provide for equality.  It did nothing except cost money for couples.

    1. the bad thing is that Pols painted Ferry’s bill as the same as Mitchells:

      And since they’re basically using Mitchell’s own language against him, his backpedaling opposition tells you what his motivations weren’t.

      Because it is now a Dem bill, it is better.  That is what you get from the original post.  Not becuase it clears up dead zones.  If Pols said:

      “Ferradino builds on Republican ideas to creat equality for all by clearing up dead zones”  I would have been great, but Pols took a shot a Rebublican.  Which is Party line crap.

                  1. Homonyms have the same spelling (e.g. The fair-haired girl got a fair deal on a fair number of items at the county fair.).

                    Homophones just have the same pronunciation, but not necessarily the same spelling (e.g. They’re going there to get their car fixed.).

                    1. were distinguished as heterographic and homographic to distinguish between the two, but you are saying that homonyms are always homographic homophones, whereas homophones are not necessarily?   Thanks, this is really in the weeds, huh?

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