AG John Suthers signs onto brief defending California’s gay marriage ban

Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers signed onto a brief supporting Prop 8, California’s ban on gay marriage. The Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of both Prop 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act this week.

WASHINGTON — Colorado’s Republican Attorney General John Suthers signed onto a brief that urges the Supreme Court to uphold California’s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage.

Suthers said he is defending Colorado’s own six-year-old constitutional ban on gay marriage, which 53 percent of the state’s voters approved in 2006.

“It’s simple,” he wrote. “We are defending a provision in the Colorado Constitution passed by the voters.”

Today is the first in two days of arguments challenging the constitutionality of both California’s gay marriage ban and then the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act.

Colorado could be affected by the Supreme Court’s Prop. 8 ruling because it’s one of only a small handful of states that has both a ban on gay marriage and a freshly passed civil unions law.

This isn’t the first time Suthers waded in to controversial hearings at the high court.

Last year, Suthers sat in the chambers during the constitutional challenge to so-called “Obamacare” or the Affordable Health Care Act. He was one of 26 state AGs who sued the federal government for the law.