NATIONAL

Most anti-gay marriage amendments likely to pass
Ohio, Oregon may be exceptions in trend to ban gay marriage

JOE CREA
Friday, October 29, 2004

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 knows how it’s going to break, and no one knows whether the surge of new, progressive voters will bring with it a surge of pro-gay votes as well.”

Republicans join fight
Opponents of the amendment have been buoyed by the many leading political figures in Ohio who have come out against the measure. Republican Gov. Bob Taft said he opposes the measure because it goes further than the anti-gay marriage law he signed earlier this year adding that it could lead to lawsuits.

He has also said the amendment could hurt the state’s economy, and told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Issue 1 “will make it more difficult for us to retain and attract the young, talented, knowledge workers we need to advance Ohio’s prosperity in the 21st century.”

Echoing the governor’s sentiments are other top Republicans like Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, along with the state’s two U.S. Senators, George Voinovich and Mike DeWine, both Republicans. All have expressed concern that the amendment will make businesses less competitive.

Seth Kilbourn, national field director for the Human Rights Campaign, said he found it ironic that the Republican heavyweights in the state announced their opposition to the amendment when the push for the amendment was likely motivated by Bush loyalists hoping to turn out evangelicals for the president.

However, not all of Ohio’s politicians are against the amendment. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is a strong advocate of Issue 1. He recently came under fire for saying that same-sex marriage is so absurd it defies “barnyard logic.”

“I don’t know how many of you have a farming background, but I can tell you right now that notion even defies barnyard logic … the barnyard knows better,” Blackwell told a Toledo-area church last week.

Blackwell told the Ohio press that he used the barnyard analogy “because if you’re on a farm and you want eggs to eat and little chickens to grow into big chickens, you need a rooster and a hen.”

One of the major backers of the amendment, Phil Burress, chair of the Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage, declined to be interviewed for this article.

Kilbourn said HRC has given $400,000 to Ohioans Protecting the Constitution. While he praised the group for doing “a lot in such little time,” he said it remains to be seen whether building a campaign, like the Ohio one, around the issue of gay marriage will ultimately work.

“You have to be careful because two years from now, the opponents could come back with a narrowly crafted amendment,” Kilbourn said.

He expressed hope that the 11 amendments would be defeated.

“It would be nice to tell a political story on Nov. 3 that middle America is rejecting these amendments,” he said.

Foreman said that groups across the country are doing a “fantastic job” working to defeat these amendments and educate voters but he wondered if there was enough time and resources to finish the job.

Joe Crea can be reached at jcrea@washblade.com.

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