Aug 27, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

DENVER — Certification ensuring that an initiative prohibiting gay couples from adopting in Arkansas will appear on the state ballot this November has one gay delegate from Arkansas fired up.

Thurman Metcalf, a cosmetologist and political health care advocate, told the Blade during the Democratic National Convention that the measure is “another attempt by right-wing Arkansans to control people's lives” and said “it's going to end up with more children not being adopted.”

“The right-wing people don't want to adopt these handicapped children, they just want to fight everything that's progressive in Arkansas,” he said.

On Monday, Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels announced that the Family Council, a conservative group in the state, collected enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot. The group had more than 85,000 signatures and about 62,000 were required.

The measure does not explicitly mention gays but is seen as targeting gay couples.

The certification means that the initiative will join proposed anti-gay amendments this fall on state ballots in California, Arizona and Florida. The initiatives on those ballots would prohibit same-sex marriage.

Metcalf said he plans to “work very hard to end this amendment” and said he expects the Democratic Party to oppose the measure. The delegate said the Arkansas courts should throw out the measure but probably won't because “the right-wing conservatives control so much” in the state.

Metcalf said educating Arkansas residents will be necessary to defeat the initiative. He said the measure would interfere will how grandparents “live with other adults so they don't lose their Social Security.”

“So it's very, very, very discriminating,” he said.

The Associated Press reported that Arkansas Families First, a group campaigning against the measure, plans to file a lawsuit to keep the measure from appearing on the November ballot on the grounds that the measure is unconstitutional and some petition signatures are invalid.

The recently certified initiative in Arkansas and amendments banning same-sex marriage in California, Arizona and Florida were hot topics among gay delegates at the convention.

During the gay caucus meeting Monday, Arizona State Del. Kyrsten Sinema (D), a bisexual and delegate at the convention, and Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center of Lesbian Rights, urged delegates to work together to defeat the initiatives.

Sinema noted that in 2006, Arizona defeated an earlier version of an amendment banning same-sex marriage that included more restrictive language than the initiative currently facing the state. The failure of the amendment was the first time a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage failed at the polls.

The delegate said Arizona rejected the 2006 amendment because opponents of the measure had “three 'M's”: message, messengers and money. Sinema said marriage amendments could be defeated in any state throughout the country by using these “three 'M's.”

For message, Sinema said Arizona activists “learned how to research and find the messages” to persuade swing voters to join with same-sex marriage supporters to defeat the amendment. As far as messengers, Sinema asked gay delegates to return home and talk about how the measures would be detrimental to their families. Sinema called money her most important “M” because it's necessary to exceed the finances that anti-gay groups “have enjoyed over the years.”

“The truth is, that just outside these doors, the radical right is scared to hell about the people in this room,” Sinema said. “And because they are scared of you, and me, and all of us in this room, they will fight tooth-and-nail to keep what they have and keep you from getting what you deserve.”

Minter spoke about the amendment banning same-sex marriage in California, known as Proposition 8. He said the gay community must have “leadership and unequivocal support” to defeat the California initiative.

“It is intended to take away our dignity, to take away our hope, to put us back into our place as second-class citizens,” he said. “Make no mistake, the political stakes for our community in California could not possibly be higher.”

In an interview with the Blade following the caucus, Sinema said she thinks the fate of all three marriage amendments facing different states this fall “are all intertwined.”

Sinema said the poll numbers on the Arizona amendment “are looking better than they ever had before” because Arizona residents have seen gay couples getting married in California for a couple of months.

“We have a duty as a community to do a trifecta and win all three,” she said. “I think a loss in any of those states will have a long lasting negative impact on our community.”

Sinema denied that campaigns against these measures in different states were competing with resources from the gay community.

“I think that's people who just want some salacious story, I'll be honest,” she said.

In July, Stephen Gaskill, then-spokesperson for Florida Red and Blue, said the situation in California has made fundraising more of a challenge in Florida and said “if the California effort was not underway, it would be easier for Florida to raise money.”

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