Oct 29, 2004  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

Polls suggest that many of the 11 state constitutional amendments that would ban gay marriage are likely to be approved by voters on Tuesday. But that might not be the case in Ohio.

A growing number of politicians and newspaper editorial boards, in addition to the League of Women Voters, AFL-CIO and the AARP, have joined forces to oppose Ohio’s constitutional amendment that seeks to ban not just gay marriage but civil unions, domestic partnerships and other living arrangements for couples.

Eleven states will have constitutional amendments on their ballots next Tuesday. Eight of the amendments seek to ban gay marriage, civil unions, domestic partnership and other legal arrangements for gay couples while four would only prohibit same-sex marriage.

But polls in Oregon, where voters will face an amendment that bans gay marriage, and in Ohio indicate a divided public.

An Oct. 19 ABC News poll showed 48 percent of Ohio voters in favor of Issue 1, with 47 percent opposed.

Opponents of the Ohio amendment say they have successfully altered the debate from a matter of gay marriage to one highlighting the fact that the second sentence — as interpreted by many — will remove unmarried couples’ rights to jointly own property, and forbid Ohio employers from offering health care to their employees.

The controversial second sentence reads, “This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effects of marriage.”

“A majority of Ohioans believe marriage is between one man and one woman and we’ve focused on the second sentence, which will clearly take away rights and benefits from hundreds of thousands of people in relationships other than marriage,” said Alan Melamed, campaign manager of Ohioans Protecting the Constitution.

“That sentence has gotten a lot of people’s attention rather than being hung up on whether they agree or disagree on gay marriage. Their attitude is, ‘Whatever we may feel about [gay marriage], we want to be fair to people and not take rights away.”

Tide turns for gay Ohioans
Passage of the Ohio amendment was likely back in September. A statewide survey commissioned by the Plain Dealer newspaper conducted Sept. 10-14 found that 64 percent of the 1,500 people surveyed favored the amendment, 30 percent opposed it and 6 percent were undecided.

The poll had a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points and was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research of Washington, D.C.

But despite the ABC News poll that shows the amendment neck-and-neck, another poll, conducted by the University of Cincinnati on Oct. 23, shows 57 percent of likely voters will vote for the proposed amendment and 40 percent will vote against it.

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, said it is impossible to predict how these marriage amendments will fare.

“We generally do between 6-8 percent worse at the ballot box than we do in pre-Election Day polls because people don’t want to admit to a pollster that they are homophobic,” Foreman said. “That’s the only constant that we have, and it doesn’t always happen that way.

“But this year we are dealing with so many other variables. There’s this intense campaign on both sides to energize their bases and on the progressive side, we are identifying progressive people who have not voted in the past to get them out to vote. No one ...