The Senate gave tentative approval Thursday to a bill that would expand Colorado's Ethnic Intimidation Act to include crimes that target people because of their age, sexual orientation or mental or physical disability. We have laws on the books, and they should be prosecuted, no matter what the motives are. Sen. Mark Hillman, R-Burlington, and other opponents argued that all violent crimes are hate crimes. Hillman tried to amend the bill to exclude individual classes of people, but the effort failed. Other GOP-sponsored amendments also failed.
Current law covers race and religion.
This is the fifth year Tate has introduced the bill. House Republicans had agreed earlier in the week to earmark state money for Planned Parenthood in a separate category rather than lump it together with tax dollars for other health programs. The House rejected a proposal that would have prohibited the University of Colorado from extending benefits to partners of homosexual employees. The provision was rejected on a 41-22 vote. This bill was introduced to the House on March 27 and will go to the Information and Technology Committee on Wednesday, April 18.