GOP legislatures hit back at gays on two fronts

In the week after President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage, Republican legislators in Colorado and Virginia have administered two harsh setbacks to the social acceptance of gays and lesbians.

Colorado House Speaker Frank McNulty used his power to block approval of legislation that would have legalized civil unions for same-sex couples in the Rocky Mountain State.

Kara Haney, left, and her partner of 8 years Kate Wertin, right, embrace as the Washington State Senate passes a bill that would legalize gay marriage in Washington State.

The civil union bill had passed the Colorado State Senate.? It had majority support on the floor of the state House of Representatives.? But McNulty assigned the legislation to the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee ? controlled by opponents.

The legislation failed to pass out of the committee on a 5-4 vote.? McNulty railed against Democrats and Gov. John Hickenlooper, saying they were ?pushing a last-minute, divisive attack on our traditional views of marriage.?

?It?s pretty clear (Democrats) are attempting to use this as an agenda item heading into the November election,? McNulty told CNN.

Washington approved rights for same sex couples, and then an ?everything but marriage? civil unions law that was ratified by voters in 2009.? The Legislature approved marriage equality this year, but opponents are likely to force a referendum in November.

In Virginia, a Richmond prosecutor and Navy veteran named Tracy Thorne-Begland, who is gay, was up for appointment as a General District Court judge.? But the appointment was blocked by the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly.

The legislators voted 33-31, with 10 abstentions, to approve the appointment, but Thorne-Begland needed 51 votes in the 100-member general assembly.

?He holds himself out as being married,? said Del. Robert G. Marshall, who opposed the judicial nomination along with fundamentalist Christian groups.? He also denounced Thorne-Begland?s decision, two decades ago, to ?come out? as a gay on a TV program in protest against the military?s exclusion of gays and lesbians.

?I would guess , under the law of averages, we?ve probably nominated people who have homosexual inclinations (to the bench),? Marshall said afterward.

But, apparently, someone who is above-board about his sexual preferences still faces discrimination in the Old Dominion.

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