Same-sex Marriages On & Off the Ballot
Same-sex marriage bans are getting quite popular these days. I was watching TV a few nights ago and was literally bombarded with bigoted ads urging voters to support a marriage ban, giving the impression that not doing so will mean radical changes in laws, rights, and schools. Utter bullshit.
California's Prop 8: I bet we've all heard about it. If you vote "no" schools will NOT teach students about gay marriage: CA law prohibits teaching health, social, or family issues without written parental consent. Text books will not be rewritten: everything says "parents and guardians" anyway, and has been that way since I was in elementary school. Churches won't lose their tax-exempt status, though, personally, I disagree with that status. (Wanna help the economy? Tax all the churches making campaign contributions. Sorry, you want to be a part of government, pay your dues. I digress.) The proposition doesn't overturn a law—there is no law or measure on the ballot that asks for any of these things. In short, the sky will NOT fall. I promise.
This measure is most important to me as a Californian, but here are a few things I found concerning same-sex marriage rights in other states.
Amendent 2, The Marriage Protection Amendment, has had less national coverage than California's Prop 8 (I couldn't find one mention of it on the ACLU website this year). While it's also leading in the polls, it needs a sixty percent margin to pass, and it's not quite there yet. A number of religious groups have come out to oppose it recently.
Florida Clergy for Fairness, a group of clergy from several denominations, charge that Amendment 2 is mean-spirited and an infringement upon the religious freedoms of all Floridians.
Said Rabbi Jack Romberg, of Temple Israel in Tallahassee: ''To pass Amendment 2 is to use religion to demonize another human being,'' he said. ``That is simply unjust and immoral.''
Connecticut
The state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage last week (woohoo), spurring interest in a measure that would open the state constitution to change by constitutional convention.
Convention delegates also could consider a referendum to allow "direct initiative" — a mechanism for citizens to bring issues directly to referendum in the future.Opponents of the SC ruling are hoping that voting in such a measure will lead to a ban being written into the state's constitution. That won't be easy, and may not even happen, depending on which delegates are elected to the convention. West Virginia
A religious group is demanding that an amendment be added to the ballot, forestalling a Supreme Court ruling such as those in California and Connecticut. This seems rather unlikely as well:
Amending the constitution would also require a statewide vote. Dys said such a vote should take place next year, when no legislative seats are up for election, so "no politician should fear displacement from their current position, should that be of any concern," his letter said.
Did I miss any states?