A Colorado House committee Thursday night killed a civil unions bill that would have given gay couples many of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, reports The Denver Post. Senate Bill 172 failed, as expected, on a party-line vote, with six Republicans voting against sending the measure to another committee and five Democrats voting in favour. Several Coloradans filled the old Supreme Court chambers for the hearing on SB 172, which began shortly before 2:00 pm, while others listened in other rooms set up for the overflow. The testimony, reportedly at times, part gay group therapy, part Bible study, continued until 8:30 pm., when the committee began debating the merits of the bill. Parents, partners and pastors testified in favour of the bill, which was sponsored by two Denver Democrats who are gay, Representative Mark Ferrandino and Senator Pat Steadman. "This is not a radical concept," Ferrandino said. "It's a mainstream concept. ... This does not end marriage." He added that although it was difficult to hear testimony against the bill from people who think "my life is wrong" those opponents had a right to their say. Bill proponents had worried about the House Judiciary Committee since three of the six Republicans are from El Paso County and were on record as opposing civil unions. It was not the committee Ferrandino would have chosen to hear the bill, he admitted last week when the proposal was assigned to Judiciary. The motion Thursday was to send the bill to Appropriations, a standard motion for a number of hearings. Ferrandino and other bill supporters maintained if they could have gotten the bill to the House floor they had the votes to get it passed, where Republicans have only a 33-32 advantage.
An update on a previous post, The Fresno Bee reports that an openly gay sailor at Lemoore Naval Air Station said Thursday that a three-man panel voted to let him stay in the Navy instead of being recommended for discharge under the military's policy prohibiting gay service members. 26 year old Derek Morado, who is originally from Sacramento, said the hearing lasted several hours, and of the recommendation, said "I'm ecstatic." Morado said that his attorney told the panel that the upcoming repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell as mandated by law made it unnecessary for him to be ordered to leave the Navy. The panel of two officers and one senior petty officer voted unanimously in his favour after meeting behind closed doors for 25 minutes. He said the decision will be reviewed by the Navy Personnel Command to make sure the paperwork was done correctly, and that he expects no problems will be discovered.
The New York Times reports on the unveiling Wednesday of “The Andy Monument,” a glistening semi-accurate sculpture of the Pop artist Andy Warhol, on the northwest corner of Union Square, amid a small crowd that included two surviving Warhol superstars (Taylor Meade and Ultra Violet), friends and colleagues of the artist, art world press and the curious. The slightly larger than life-size chrome-plated sculpture by the artist and Warhol aficionado Rob Pruitt stands on a cast concrete pedestal on Broadway, in a pedestrian area where vehicular traffic once turned left onto 17th Street. Sponsored by the Public Art Fund and on display through Oct. 2, it is located within sight of two of the buildings that formerly housed Warhol’s famous Factory, 33 Union Square West and 860 Broadway. The statues’ quicksilver surface, far more mercurial than its unflappable subject ever was, catches the light, even at night. It is, implicitly, a superstar metal. According to the Times, “Mr. Pruitt has tweaked, revived and redirected received ideas, joining Jeff Koons’ stainless steel casts of existing objects and sculptures (including a bust of Louis XIV) with the tired tradition of the public-hero monument. Warhol, the statue, joins an impressive roster of drabber bronze or stone denizens of Union Square — Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi and the Virgin Mary — and portrait-wise is probably about as idealized.”
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