AUDIO: Delaware Passes Civil Unions

Listen to the gallery erupt after the vote is announced.

DELAWARE: Civil Unions Pass House!

Tonight the Delaware House passed its civil unions bill by a vote of 26-15. The bill passed last week in the state Senate and is now expected to be signed by Gov. Jack Markell, after which it will go into effect on January 1st, 2012.

The Human rights Campaign notes via press release:

SB 30 will allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions giving them all of the rights, benefits, and obligations of marriage under state law, but would not allow same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses. Religious institutions may choose not to solemnize civil unions. Delaware will be the 8th state to offer civil unions or comprehensive domestic partnerships. After the bill is signed into law, it will take effect on Jan. 1, 2012. Currently, five states have laws providing an expansive form of state-level relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples, without offering marriage. California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington provide same-sex couples with access to almost of all the state level benefits and responsibilities of marriage, through either civil unions or domestic partnerships. Earlier this year, the governors of Hawaii and Illinois signed into law civil unions bills. Couples in Illinois can begin applying for civil union licenses on June 1, 2011 and in Hawaii couples can begin applying on Jan. 1, 2012. Same-sex couples do not receive federal rights and benefits in any state.

DELAWARE: Civil Unions Passes Senate

The Delaware Senate just approved its civil unions bill! Washington Blade reports:

The Delaware Senate on Thursday passed a bill to legalize civil unions in the state by a 13-6 vote. Eleven votes were needed to pass it. The approval came after the Senate defeated two hostile amendments, including one that would have forced a state referendum on the issue. The second amendment called for expanding the measure to include opposite-sex couples. It was defeated 12-2.

The bill will be considered next week by the state House, where it is expected to pass easily. However...remember Maryland.

COLORADO: Denver Archbishop Celebrates Defeat Of Civil Unions Bill

"In the face of unfriendly media coverage and heavy political pressure, opponents of the legislation did the right thing. They challenged and tabled the bill, killing it for this session. That sounds like a small act, but it took courage, especially in an environment of bitter criticism. The committee members who opposed the bill deserve our gratitude and support. The civil unions debate is about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience—and that a great many people see as morally troubling, not because they are 'haters' or 'frightened' or 'bigots' or 'uneducated'—that kind of language is the real bigotry in this debate—but because they’ve carefully thought through the implications for society at large." - Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput.

IRELAND: Civil Unions Begin

Barry Dignam and Hugh Walsh (above) today become among Ireland's first gay couples to be joined under the nation's civil partnerships law. The law went into effect on January 1st with a three month waiting period.

Theirs is not the first civil partnership to take place here – six civil partnerships have already been registered in the State arising from court-granted exemptions to the usual three-month notice which couples must give to the General Registrar Office. Mr Dignam admitted that when the couple originally found out that they were to be the first gay couple who were to avail of the new regime without first seeking an exemption to do so, they did consider postponing the ceremony given the media attention that would inevitably follow. “We did have an opportunity to move the date but we felt that we would have been cheating [gay] people who had been through an awful lot of hardship – those who had been ridiculed and even jailed in the past,” he said.