Nov 08, 2006  |  By: ERIC ERVIN  | COMMENTS     

Arizona voters narrowly defeated a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, becoming the first state in the country to reject such a measure.

Some 51.4 percent of those who voted rejected the measure and 48.6 supported it, with 2,208 of the state’s 2,209 precincts reporting, according to unofficial results from the Arizona Secretary of State’s office on Wed.

Proposition 107 would have banned gay marriage and prohibited granting unmarried couples any legal status similar to marriage.

“I don’t think it’ll make a difference when all of the ballots are counted, we’ve won. I’m really proud to be in Arizona right now,” said Kyrsten Sinema, chair of Arizona Together and a Democratic state legislator.

Sinema estimated her organization spent about $1.5 million on the campaign to defeat the measure. The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay political group, contributed approximately $125,000 to Arizona Together, and “helped leverage an additional $70,000,” according to an HRC press release.

Joe Solmonese, HRC president, hailed the Arizona results, but added it takes time to achieve marriage equality for gay men and lesbians.

“In this modern day world, we get a little impatient about how long this awesome civil rights struggle will take,” he said. “This is the civil rights struggle of our time. This is a decade-long-or-more struggle.”

Solmonese said he believes Tuesday’s vote in Arizona shows gay activists are making strides in winning equality.

“Is this Arizona victory the next turning point in that very long march to equality? I think it might be,” he said.

‘Targeted, smart campaign’

Solmonese said opponents of the measure in Arizona ran a “very targeted, smart campaign” and were led by “sophisticated, political people.”

Sinema said Arizona Together stayed focused on the campaign, ignoring “personal attacks” from social conservative groups who supported the measure.

Calls to Cathi Herrod, spokesperson for Protect Marriage Arizona, a conservative group based in Phoenix that supported the ban, were not returned. Herrod’s group was backed by Focus on the Family.

Through a spokesperson, Focus on the Family officials declined an interview request.

Arizona’s same-sex marriage amendment was one of eight that appeared on ballots Nov. 7. Similar measures were approved in Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“We were not able to defeat the amendment, and this is very troubling for many families in Wisconsin,” Mike Tate, campaign manager for Fair Wisconsin, said in a prepared statement.

Although 59 percent of voters supported Wisconsin’s measure with 41 percent opposing it, Tate said he remains optimistic about the future.

“We cannot ignore the fact that we have laid the foundation for long-term change in Wisconsin,” he said.

A total of 27 states now have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage.

The defeat of the Arizona amendment, coupled with smaller margins of victory in some states that approved the measures, led gay rights groups to predict a shifting tide on marriage rights for gay men and lesbians.

“It’s a true victory for our community,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. “We’ve been waiting for a breakthrough state, and Arizona is that breakthrough.”

NGLTF didn’t contribute money to the fight in Arizona, Foreman said.

Foreman points to returns in Virginia, South Dakota, Colorado and Wisconsin that reached more than 40 percent opposition this year, and topping the same mark in Oregon and Michigan in 2004, as examples of changing attitudes nationally toward same-sex marriage.

Solmonese agreed the results signify the start of a trend in accepting gay men and lesbians. Noting the generally closer votes this year than in 2004, he said he’d always expected votes to “ebb and flow” on the issue, but thinks the nation is now seeing the beginning of a flow back in a positive direction.

“We’re not talking about pushover states here,” Foreman said. “I think we’ve made significant progress in the last two years. It’s clear that voters are moving rapidly in support of same-sex marriage. It’s only a matter of time.”

Tim Wildmon, president of the conservative American Family Association, said in a prepared statement that Arizona is only one of 27 states.

“We are disappointed in the vote with Arizona,” Wildmon said. “We are pleased that seven out of eight states voted for traditional marriage. The score is still 27 states having passed the Marriage Amendment, only one voted against traditional marriage.”

Dan Pinello, a gay government professor at City University of New York and author of “America’s Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage,” said support for gay rights improved more across the board than in 2004.

“It wasn’t the national devastation we experienced on the issues two years ago,” Pinello said. “It was more of a mixed bag, which is an improvement.”