Gays must confront hostile state ballot issues
By Deb Price / The Detroit News from the Web, August 3, 2004
Detroit, Aug 2 -- Dave Fleischer, who's leading the effort to beat back an unprecedented flood of anti-gay ballot initiatives, sums up the coming Election Day 2004 as a tale of two headlines.
The first one ain't pretty: "Voters Say No to Gays."
The second?
"Voters Say No to Discrimination."
With fewer than 100 days before voters write the headline, gay groups in the bull's-eye states of the foes of gay marriage have way too little money and far too few helpers.
The unfortunate reality is that after a string of breathtaking breakthroughs, we're headed for some stinging defeats.
Setbacks are inevitable in any civil rights movement, but it's urgent that those of us who're gay work with our allies to keep losses to a minimum.
We must embrace state battles over marriage as opportunities to educate our friends and neighbors -- and to hasten the day that gay Americans enjoy full equality nationwide.
As happened with the disastrous gays-in-the-military defeat in 1993, a hugely important equality issue will be going up for vote -- then by Congress, now to the general public -- before fair-minded Americans have had time to thoughtfully weigh it.
"This is the closest our country has ever come to having a national referendum," says Fleischer of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
"The Founding Fathers would have strongly disapproved, particularly on a civil rights issue.
They created legislatures and courts to make sure that minority rights and needs weren't trampled by the majority."
Trampled is a mild word for what's likely ahead.
In at least 11 states, voters will be asked whether to amend their state constitution to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying.
Two of the states vote early: Missouri on Tuesday, Louisiana on Sept. 17.
Voting on Nov. 2 will be Montana, Oregon, Georgia, Mississippi, Utah, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Michigan.
Two other states are likely as well -- Ohio and North Dakota, where qualifying petitions are turned in Wednesday.
And, flipping the calendar ahead a bit, we can expect to see similar anti-gay ballot initiatives in Wisconsin in April 2005; in Maine, Pennsylvania and Texas in November 2005; and then in Massachusetts, the only state where same-sex couples are marrying now, Tennessee and, possibly, California in 2006.
Judging on activity in this year's legislatures, ballot measures are probable in 2005 in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Kansas.
Already, four states -- Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada and Nebraska -- have written prohibitions against same-sex marriage into their state constitutions.
To get a sense of how difficult it can be to strip out discrimination once it's been written into a state constitution, take a look at Alabama.
Voters there didn't vote to take out their ban on interracial marriage until 2000, 33 years after the U.S. Supreme Court had declared such bans unconstitutional.
What can be done?
To help benchwarmers get in this David v. Goliath contest, the task force has created "Save Our States," where Web surfers can donate money -- 100 percent of which will go directly to targeted states -- and get other tips on how to pitch in. (Details:
thetaskforce.org)
Money helps. But our biggest asset is ourselves -- telling our friends, family and colleagues why being locked out of marriage harms us.
Someone can be iffy on same-sex marriage, but still be persuaded that a lot more discussion needs to happen before discrimination is written into a state constitution.
Not only people living in the targeted states can make a difference with conversations.
Many of us have friends or family, or school ties to those states.
Respond to the SOS message: Save our states. Throw equality a lifeline.
You can reach Deb Price at (202) 906-8205 or dprice@detnews.com.
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