Yesterday, the Colorado State Senate passed SB 172, which would allow same-sex couples (or any two unmarried adults) to obtain a civil union. During the debate, the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Pat Steadman (D) — who is openly gay — said the measure provided “very basic, but very important legal protections… that no family should be without.” Opponents of the measure disagreed. Led by Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R), this group of lawmakers predicted that state recognition of same-sex relationships could lead to a breakdown of traditional marriages and pointed to Europe, where they claimed the family has been “abandoned”:

LUNDBERG: We need not go back centuries, in fact we cannot go back centuries, because it is such a foreign concept to human experience, save the last few decades. But we do have some examples. We can look to the nation of France, which instituted civil unions in the 1990s. We can look at some of these Scandinavian countries that have gone down this same road and what we see is not a reinforcement of marriage and the family unit. But what we see are cultures that have abandoned the family unit as a foundation of human society…This would change the very concept of what marriage is.

Watch it:

Conservatives made this very same argument after Massachusetts began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004, warning against a rapid deterioration of heterosexual partnerships and broken families. Their European statistics were wrong then — after Denmark’s passed its registered-partner law in 1989, marriage rates climbed, as did the rates in other Scandinavian countries — and their doomsday projections never materialized in the states that do recognize same-sex unions today.

In fact, Massachusetts recorded the “the lowest divorce rates in the entire country” and Iowa has posted the lowest number of divorces since 1970. As FiveThirtyEight.com pointed out last year, “states which have tended to take more liberal policies toward gay marriage have tended also to have larger declines in their divorce rates,” while the seven states with the highest rates “all had constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage in place throughout 2008.” And although the causation may still be unclear, it’s certainly not the case that same sex marriage results in the disintegration of the institution as a whole.

During yesterday’s debate, Lundberg also disputed claims that same-sex couples are sometimes denied hospital visitation rights because their unions are not recognized by the state. Characterizing such hardships as “beyond my experience,” Lundberg concluded, “They don’t occur by my observation, anyway.”

The civil unions bill will face a final vote this morning and will then go to the House, where Republicans have a one-seat majority. Advocates believe they have the votes to pass the bill on the floor, but suspect that it could face a challenge in committee. Polling has shown that 72 percent of Coloradans and 61 percent of Republicans in the state support civil unions. In 2006, however, voters approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage and voted down a measure that would have established civil unions. (H/T: Daniel Gonzales at Box Turtle Bulletin)

Since 53 percent of Americans — including a 53 percent of white Catholics and 57 percent of nonevangelical Protestants — now support marriage equality, Republican presidential candidates who speak out against gay initiatives risk positioning themselves at the very extreme end of political spectrum. Yesterday, my CAP colleagues Noel Gordon and Jeff Krehely released an interactive of the likely GOP candidates’ positions on LGBT issues. As it turns out, all of the potential GOP hopefuls are firmly outside the American mainstream:

- NEWT GINGRICH: “I stand on some kind of legal rights. I’m not sure where I stand on civil unions. It’s like marriage without marriage. I’ll give you a specific example of what I believe. People ought to have the ability to have people visit them in the hospital, which is the most obvious and awkward situation.” [The American View, 2005]

- “[T]here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us.” [O'Reilly Factor, 11/14/2010]

- MIKE HUCKABEE: “While discussing marriage for gay couples: “There are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. … there are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them?” [Politico, 6/22/2010]

- “I believe that we’re in denial about potential problems as we see more and more homosexual couples raising families. Essentially, these are experiments to see how well children will fare in such same-sex households. It will be years before we know whether or not our little guinea pigs turn out to be good at marriage and parenthood.” [A Simple Government]

- GOV. HALEY BARBOUR (R-MS): “I’m proud that Mississippi cast the highest percentage of its vote of any state in the country for the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.” [Jackson Free Press, 1/11/2011]

- TIM PAWLENTY: “My general view on all of this is that marriage is to be defined as being a union of a man and a woman. Marriage should be elevated in our society at a special level. I don’t think all domestic relationships are the equivalent of traditional marriage.” [Newsweek, 12/20/2009]

- MITT ROMNEY: “I agree with 3,000 years of recorded history. I disagree with the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman… Of course, basic civil rights and certain appropriate benefits should be available to people in nontraditional relationships. But marriage is a special institution between a man and a woman, and our constitution and laws should reflect that.” [Stump speech, 4/28/2007]

- SARAH PALIN: “Well not if it goes closer and closer toward redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and woman and unfortunately that’s sometimes where those steps lead. But I also want to clarify if there’s any kind of suggestion, at all, from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves. You know, I am tolerant. And I have a very diverse family and group of friends.” [CNN, 10/2/2008]

- RICK SANTORUM: “Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that’s what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality.” [USA Today, 4/23/2003]

Click here to see the interactive and download the complete report [PDF].