Attempts to legalise same-sex civil unions in the US state of Colorado have been blocked after a key committee allowed the legislation to die in the state’s legislature.

It is the latest setback for same-sex marriage advocates in the US. Last month attempts to legalise same-sex marriage in Maryland, one of the most liberal states in the US, failed when legislators from African-American districts refused to support the bill.

Members of the Colorado House Judiciary Committee members challenged the bill, after the state Senate passed it.

The Catholic Archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, welcomed the move, saying “it took courage, especially in an environment of bitter criticism”.

“The committee members who opposed the bill deserve our gratitude and support,” he added.

Archbishop Chaput said: “The civil unions debate is finally about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience—and that a great many people see as morally troubling, not because they are “haters” or “frightened” or “bigots” or “uneducated”—that kind of language is the real bigotry in this debate—but because they’ve carefully thought through the implications for society at large.”

In a 2006 referendum, Coloradan voters voted strongly in favor of traditional marriage and against domestic partnerships.

Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, a bill to legalise same-sex marriage is currently unable to pass the state legislature.

It is thought that it is at least six to eight votes short of the 38 votes needed to pass the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

Hispanic voters in the state are among the most vocal opponents of the measure. The Hispanic Pastoral Association delivered a petition with 5,500 signatures from Hispanic Christians opposing gay marriage—and most of them live in core-Democrat inner-city districts.

The Speaker of the House, Gordon Fox, who is openly homosexual, had planned to pass the bill quickly, removed it from consideration when it became clear that it would not pass.

Voters in every US state where same-sex marriage has come to a referendum, 31 in all, have rejected it. Currently only five states, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, allow same-sex couples to marry. Washington DC, which is not a state, also allows same-sex couples to marry.