Wyoming House committee strikes down civil union bill

[davidinalameda]

Legislation that would have made Wyoming the third state to recognize civil unions narrowly failed in the House Judiciary Committee on Friday.

The 5-4 vote to defeat House Bill 150 came after hours of impassioned testimony from supporters who said civil unions would give same-sex couples basic rights and opponents who claimed civil unions were a thinly disguised stepping stone to gay marriage.

But state Reps. Bob Nicholas, R-Cheyenne, and Frank Peasley, R-Douglas, who cast the deciding votes against the bill, opposed the proposal not on ideological grounds, but rather because they worried the wording of the bill -- which almost exactly mirrored the rights and responsibilities Wyoming law lists for marriage -– could lead to legal pitfalls in the future.

For example, Peasley pointed to a part of the bill stating that in a Wyoming civil union, like a marriage, the man in the partnership would be considered the father if the woman gets pregnant.

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/article_cac4c587-343d-5fb0-a94e-761d081d901a.html

[RetiredTrotskyite]

1. Yeah...

equality can cause such pitfalls for bigots. Not surprising though, given that this is Wyoming. You can bet that even if the legislator said it was not because of ideological reasons, it was.