OFA Minnesota Communications
Director Kristin Sosanie
The Obama campaign
has made clear its opposition to an amendment opposing marriage equality that will appear on the Minnesota ballot in November. In a statement, Obama for America's Minnesota Communications Director Kristin Sosanie
said:
“While the President does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples. That’s what the Minnesota ballot initiative would do—it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples—and that’s why the President does not support it.”
That's the second time in a month, using nearly identical language, that the Obama campaign has spoken against a proposed law that would forbid marriages between individuals of the same sex. Three weeks ago, Cameron French of the North Carolina Obama campaign
said the president opposed that state's Amendment One appearing on the state's May 8 ballot.
The North Carolina version is much worse. Not only would it prohibit marriages between same-sex individuals, it would also prohibit civil unions—as have some other state amendments on marriage equality—and it would end domestic partnerships between unmarried heterosexual couples, of whom there are some 233,000 in the state, according the the Raleigh News & Observer.
The Obama campaign has not spoken one way or the other on three other marriage equality referendums that are or likely will be on the ballot this November in Washington, Maryland and Maine. In 2009, voters in Maine overturned a state law legalizing marriage equality. Backers of the ballot measure this year hope to reverse that decision. So far polls indicate the majority of Mainers support marriage equality. But that could change as the campaign against it by a coalition of local groups and the National Organization for Marriage heats up. NOM recently was exposed as running a multi-million-dollar operation to drive a wedge between African Americans and gays over marriage equality.
Marriage equality advocates generally praised the president's position, but some have asked for more:
As The Washington Post's Greg Sargent wrote of the North Carolina statement, ''[E]ach time Obama takes another positive step towards full equality for gay and lesbian Americans, it has the effect of further persuading gay advocates that Obama does support marriage equality—and stokes their impatience to see him come out and say so already.''
Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson, who has fought for marriage equality for nearly three decades, responded to the White House's Wonderland statements—and reinforced Sargent's point—by saying, ''One way to put an end to questions and parsing, and to get the full credit [that the administration's] so many pro-gay and pro-marriage steps deserve, is to be forthrightly for the freedom to marry, not just against 'against measures' such as DOMA or the anti-gay ballot measures.''
If the outcome of any of the five referendums were to acknowledge marriage equality, it would be the first time voters have done so. In 31 referendums since 1998, voters have rejected laws and court decisions affirming the right of partners of the same sex to marry and, in some cases, join in a civil union.
•••
Thanks to FogCityJohn for reminding me that Arizona voters did turn down an effort to amend the state constitution to ban marriage equality in 2006. Marriages between people of the same sex have been outlawed by Arizona statute since 1996. But anti-equality forces wanted to be sure lawmakers would not be able to overturn the law. The victory was short-lived. Voters passed a law banning marriage (but not civil unions) between couples of the same sex in 2008. Which makes the referendum count 31 for a ban, one against a ban, which decision was overturned in a subsequent vote.