Bisbee Arizona legalizes civil unions, pushes aside AG's legal warnings VIDEO

BISBEE, Arizona — Ignoring vociferous opposition and threats of lawsuits, the small southeastern Arizona city of Bisbee legalized civil unions for same-sex couples Tuesday night in an historic council vote that turned into a political circus, as nearly 100 people packed the chambers in both opposition and support.

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The City Council pushed aside legal warnings from the state’s attorney general and a conservative advocacy group and voted 5-2 to become first city in the state to offer civil-union certificates for all couples that would extend to same-sex partners some of the same rights as married couples within the Bisbee boundaries.

The ordinance, which goes into effect in 30 days, would cover joint property ownership, property inheritance, guardianship and adoption rights.

Two weeks ago, the council gave unanimous approval to the ordinance in a preliminary vote few knew was happening. A handful of locals spoke in support. There was no opposition.

Tuesday was an entirely different story. For three hours, the seven-member council, which was caught off-guard by the fervor over the proposal, listened as one after another, impassioned opponents and supporters voiced their opinions. Many spoke against the ordinance, some decrying the move as being against “God’s law.”

City Attorney John MacKinnon defended the move, saying the civil-union ordinance “does not change state laws” and that the state had no legal standing to fight it.

Arizona voters in 2008 approved a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. However, two years earlier, voters rejected a broader version that would have barred the state and local governments from creating or recognizing “a legal status for unmarried persons that is similar to marriage.”

Tuesday night’s council meeting in the mining city that reinvented itself as an artist community came just a week after national attention was focused on the highly charged issue when the U.S. Supreme Court took up two lawsuits challenging state and federal restrictions on same-sex marriage.

And just hours before the meeting, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, at the urging of state lawmakers from Cochise County, sent a letter warning Bisbee that his office would take legal action against the city if council members approved the ordinance.

Horne said Bisbee does not have the authority to offer civil unions and that “the impact goes beyond (city) boundaries.” More Arizona Republic