Just saw this story this morning...don't know if it's news to anyone else. Colorado Republicans failed to get a proposed "gay marriage ban" on the ballot. Given what I saw in my own state last November (below the jump), I think this is a Very Good Thing.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/4448644/detail.html
DENVER -- Republicans Tuesday failed to get a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the November ballot after opponents called it an attempt to write discrimination into the state Constitution.
Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said recent attempts by gays and lesbians in other states to get legal recognition of their civil unions threaten the institution of marriage, which Lundberg said is clearly defined as a union between a man and a woman. He said voters should make the final decision.
"It's a referred ballot measure because we should let the voters decide. I'm not asking you to make the decision, I'm simply asking that we put this before the people of Colorado," Lundberg told the House Judiciary Committee.
The committee killed the measure on a 6-5 party line vote after Democrats said it was unconstitutional and would cost taxpayers to defend in court if it passed.
Cathryn Hazouri, representing the American Civil Liberties Union, said the measure would probably face a court challenge if lawmakers tried to put it on the ballot.
"It's just plain wrong to write discrimination into the constitution," she told lawmakers.
She said the title of the referred measure mentioned nothing about civil unions, which would also be excluded.
"Clearly this is a deceptive title," she said.
Lundberg said voters are smart enough to figure out what it meant.
No, they are pretty much counting on voters not figuring it out. Reference a comment I wrote after the November election. That was when my state embarrassed me by, not only by going for Bush, but also for approving that dreadful Issue 1.
http://www.therightchristians.org/?q=node/view/566
Yesterday, while in line, I had this aggravating conversation in which I got gutsy and mentioned out loud how troubling that second sentence in Issue 1 (the alleged same-sex marriage ban) is. There were sheets posted on the walls where we waited so that we could read about the initiatives--since apparently it
was decided to enforce the 5 minute voting rule.
Anyway, as we were looking at the initiatives, I commented out loud (thanks, Howard Dean, for increasing my chutzpah to such shockingly unprecedented levels!) that it was the second sentence of that initiative that was so troubling, which is why major Ohio businesses and a lot of Republicans, including Governor Taft, were against it.
Depressing lack of awareness of the issue. Several people thought that voting for or against the initiative wouldn't change anything. This one woman kept asking, after I gave my spiel about the problems with Issue 1, "So, do I vote yes or no if I want man-woman marriage?"
My bad side almost wished I'd just said, "You vote no." But that would be wrong. Plus other people were there and would have corrected it. So I just said, again, that there are a lot of people, like our mayor and our governor who say they believe marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and they are against the amendment because of what it could do to the economy, the rights people already have that could be taken away, yadda yadda yadda. So I said, "Well, you should vote yes only if you believe that we should take away rights that some couples already have, and that places like Ohio State shouldn't even have the choice to offer domestic partner benefits."
I know it sounds "undemocratic" to say something shouldn't be put to a vote, but when it comes to other people's rights, sadly, it's safest not to. I wonder how many states would still ban interracial marriages like my own if it had been put to a popular vote...