Jan 05, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

State legislatures rather than the U.S. Congress continue to be the place where most of the nation’s gay-related legislation is proposed and debated, with 379 bills addressing sexual orientation surfacing in 2006.

According to a preliminary report released in December by Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group, only 75 of those bills were related to same-sex marriage, despite the flurry of publicity surrounding that subject.

The remaining 304 bills covered other areas, including sexual orientation discrimination, hate crimes, family recognition, parenting, and education and schools, the HRC report shows.

“State capitols continue to be the epicenter in the quest for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality,” says an executive summary of HRC’s soon-to-be-released report.

The full report, “From State to State 2006: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Americans and State Legislation,” will be released later this month.

The report shows that of the total of 379 gay-related measures introduced in state legislatures, 242 were favorable to gays while 137 were deemed unfavorable. In what HRC considers a positive trend, 34 of the favorable bills passed while only 10 of the unfavorable measures were approved. All of the others were defeated or died in committee.

Also on the plus side, the report shows that in 2006, Washington state became the 17th state over the past two decades to pass legislation banning discrimination against gays. The California Legislature became the first state to approve a bill specifically dealing with domestic violence among same-sex couples. And another 15 bills passed in seven states that extend rights and benefits of same-sex couples.

 
The report shows that gays came out mostly on the losing side in 2006 concerning bills that address the issue of same-sex marriage:

• Out of 75 marriage-related bills introduced in 25 states, 85 percent of the bills were aimed at restricting marriage or civil rights in general for same-sex couples.

• 16 states had bills pending in their legislatures that were intended to amend their constitutions to discriminate against same-sex couples. These amendments were defeated in 13 state legislatures.

• Voters ratified anti-gay state constitutional amendments in eight states through separate measures placed on the ballot.

• Voters in Arizona defeated a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, making it the first state to kill such an amendment through a popular election.

• At the end of the year, a total of 26 states had constitutional amendments banning marriage for same-sex couples.

The report shows that there was a 47 percent increase in the number of favorable “relationship-recognition” bills passed in 2006 compared to 2005, with eight approved in 2005 and 15 approved in 2006. Among the states and jurisdictions passing such bills in 2006, which increased the rights or benefits to same-sex couples, were California, the District of Columbia, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.

The Colorado Legislature passed a domestic partnership bill, but voters later rejected the measure.
 

Other 2006 trends include:

• A 50 percent decrease in the number of bills emerging in state legislatures seeking to restrict or take away marriage-related rights for same-sex couples, from 10 in 2005 to five in 2006. HRC state coordinator Kerry Evans said the reduction is based, in part, on the fact that out of the eight anti-gay marriage constitutional amendments that voters approved in 2006, three were approved by their respective state legislatures in 2005.

• A decrease in the overall number of marriage-related bills introduced, from 100 in 2005 to 75 in 2006. The decrease stemmed from a reduction in the number of anti-gay marriage bills introduced, from 88 in 2005 to 64 in 2006.

• A 52 percent increase in the number of education- or school-related bills introduced, from 27 to 41. Most of these bills were unfavorable to gays.

• The trend of Republican governors vetoing gay-supportive bills passed by Democratic-controlled legislatures in 2005 continued in 2006. However, in 2006, two of the vetoes were for bills harmful to gays. In 2005, all six vetoes of gay-related bills targeted bills supportive of gay rights.