Former Colorado Republican legislator Rob Witwer says yes to civil unions

(image: Alan Light, Flickr)

Rob Witwer, a former state Representative and today’s Republican appointee to redraw the redistricting lines for the Legislature, has published an editorial detailing his support for civil unions.

Writing his opinion piece for the conservative oriented blog, Peak Politics, Witwer explained that government regulations had no bearing on marriage as it existed as a sacred sacrament and civil unions should be a function of liberty.

“The only way to justify treating gay people differently is to say that freedom is secondary to government’s interest in manipulating human behavior. Yet this is totally inconsistent with the conservative approach to government in general. When left-leaning social engineers try to coerce behavior in other contexts, we rightly decry the ‘nanny state.'” Witwer wrote.

Witwer also touched on concerns Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, raised during the civil union debate this year. Lundberg had argued that civil unions essentially were marriages, different in name only, and undermined the institution of marriage. Witwer disagreed.

“Then there’s the argument that civil unions are just marriage by another name, and as such they undermine the very institution of marriage. I don’t agree with this. One’s a legal construction, the other a sacrament. There’s a big difference,” Witwer wrote.

“The sacrament of marriage existed long before our government busied itself with defining it. In my faith, a couple is married only through the act of being joined together by God,” Witwer wrote. “If the government today declared my marriage void because of a legal technicality, it would mean nothing to me. For what God has brought together, no man – or government – can separate. Nor could government compel a church to recognize a legal “marriage” as being sacred.”

Comments are closed.