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The results of the mid-term elections that poured in on Tuesday night included a number of important demographic milestones.
Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland will be the first Native American women to sit in Congress. Capitol Hill will have its first Muslim congress women with Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. And Representative Jared Polis (D-Colo.) Will be the first openly gay man to hold the position of governor of a state.
Polis, a Boulder congressman and former congressman, beat Republican Walker Stapleton by six points in the Colorado governor's contest. But the splash of Polis in the history books is all the more significant as we remember the very bad record of the state he was elected.
Since the early 1990s, Colorado has played a key role in the battle for LGBT rights. The state was dubbed the "state of hatred" because of a controversial 1992 law that sparked hostile reactions and international boycotts. But the same legislation resulted in a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in 1996 that helped lay the foundation for the equality of marriages.
"This is a historic victory – not only for the LGBT community, but for the state of Colorado," Annise Parker, president and chief executive officer of the Victory Fund, a non-profit political organization, told reporters in Denver Post on Tuesday. profit supporting LGBT politicians. "The fact that the state of Colorado, which was nicknamed" the state of hatred, "has in 25 years gone to a place that can elect a person not only openly gay, but also cheerful, is historic."
Polis has been open about her sexuality since coming to Congress in January 2009. Born in Colorado but raised in California, Polis' mother and father founded a greeting card company that was later sold for hundreds of millions dollars, according to the Denver Post. One of the wealthiest members of the house, with an estimated fortune of $ 387 million, has built a reputation in Washington as a supporter of technology-savvy public education.
Polis has two children with her long-time partner and has never downplayed her campaign orientation, a sign of the changing public perception of a state that has dumped its past in the West West in favor of a progressive identity.
"Colorado is a state that values diversity," he told the Denver Post before the midterm elections. "We are ready to elect people who will do a good job for our state, regardless of their background. … I think it's exciting to show how far the LGBT community is from hindering its election to the highest office of the state. "
The ignominious nickname "State of Hate" Colorado begins with Will Perkins, a car salesman inflamed Colorado Springs. In response to several municipal ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, Perkins and a group of evangelical Christians formed Colorado for family values in 1991.
"Too many people have subscribed to the idea that homosexuality, as they call it, is genetic, that they can not do anything about it," Perkins told a group. of followers, according to Denver's Westword. "I am here to tell you that there are only two types of humanity: men and women. There is no homosexual.
To fight legal protections, Perkins and his group launched a voting initiative called Amendment 2. The referendum said anti-discrimination laws gave "special rights" to gays and lesbians and thus prohibited such legal protections.
"They talked about not giving special rights to homosexuals, but they were doing it basically by taking away rights," said Kris McDaniel-Miccio, a professor at the University of Denver, told Westword in 2017. " Everyone held their breath to wonder if this was happening. to catch fire in other states, as well as Colorado. "
On November 3, 1992, Colorado passed amendment 2 at 53%. An immediate outcry followed civil rights groups and activists. Celebrities like Barbra Streisand have spoken out against the amendment, according to Westword. In Colorado, corporate leaders outraged by the law have called for a boycott of their own state.
"We called for a global boycott," said a Denver businesswoman at the Christian Science Monitor in 1992. "Do not come here for hobbies. Do not come here for business. The governor and the people must understand that basic civil rights are fundamental. Creating a change through a boycott is only one way to demonstrate the power of the people. "
According to the controller, a month after the adoption of Amendment 2, the number of canceled Cancellations only due to the boycott had risen to more than $ 6 million.
Eventually, a lawsuit was filed against the amendment on behalf of a homosexual man named Richard G. Evans, who was working for the Mayor of Denver. In the case – Romer v. Evans -, the federal judicial system has been compared to the United States Supreme Court. Observers from across the country listened because similar proposals had already been made in other states.
"The cloning of Amendment 2 was a political problem. All eyes were turned to the results of the Supreme Court, "said Mary Celeste, a lawyer who worked on the case on KUNC radio in 2016."[I]If we had lost there, these initiatives would be showcased across the country. "
In May 1996, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado's law was unconstitutional by a majority of six to three. In his majority speech, Judge Anthony M. Kennedy addressed some themes that would come decades later in his famous opinion Obergefell v. Hodges, the case of the legalization of same-sex marriage.
With respect to amendment 2, Kennedy wrote that the law "is both too narrow and too broad. He identifies people by a single stroke and then denies them any protection. The resulting forfeiture for a category of persons of the right to seek specific protection against the law is unprecedented in our jurisprudence. "
Despite the possible implosion of the 1992 amendment, Colorado has also played a more recent role in the fight for equality.
In 2012, a pastry owner in Lakewood, Col., refused to serve a homosexual couple for religious reasons. The resultant Supreme Court decision – Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. c. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission – took the side of the case, reducing the scope of the laws on non-discrimination.
Many legal observers who watched the 2017 case echoed the previous state battle against a gay rights court.
"What I find really fascinating about Amendment 2," said McDaniel-Miccio at Westword, "is that we will relive it in 2017".
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