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Colorado Lawmakers Reject Six Anti-LGBTQ Bills

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Jesse Varner

After 13 hours of testimony, state lawmakers have rejected six bills from Republicans that were heavily criticized by members of the LGBTQ community. KDNK's Scott Franz has more.

One of the bills would have stopped same-sex couples from adopting children. Another sought to end gay marriage. None of the proposals were expected to pass in a legislature controlled by Democrats, who labeled them a QUOTE slate of hate. But their introduction sparked protest from several LGBTQ advocates and lawmakers, including Brianna Titone, Colorado’s first transgender legislator.

TITONE: When bills like this are introduced it instills fear and anxiety in the LGBTQ youth, and they need to know there are people here who will defend them….
 
Some Republican lawmakers defended the bills, saying they were trying to protect traditional values. They also disagreed with critics who called the bills discriminatory.

Scott Franz is a government watchdog reporter and photographer from Steamboat Springs. He spent the last seven years covering politics and government for the Steamboat Pilot & Today, a daily newspaper in northwest Colorado. His reporting in Steamboat stopped a police station from being built in a city park, saved a historic barn from being destroyed and helped a small town pastor quickly find a kidney donor. His favorite workday in Steamboat was Tuesday, when he could spend many of his mornings skiing untracked powder and his evenings covering city council meetings. Scott received his journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an outdoorsman who spends at least 20 nights a year in a tent. He spoke his first word, 'outside', as a toddler in Edmonds, Washington. Scott visits the Great Sand Dunes, his favorite Colorado backpacking destination, twice a year. Scott's reporting is part of Capitol Coverage, a collaborative public policy reporting project, providing news and analysis to communities across Colorado for more than a decade. Fifteen public radio stations participate in Capitol Coverage from throughout Colorado.
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