The Marriage Law Project at The Catholic University of America

TOP6NEWS - November 3, 2004

1-NEWS: All marriage amendments pass

2-NEWS: Gay reaction to marriage amendments

3-NEWS: Pro-m reaction to marriage amendments

4-NEWS: MA legislature election and ssm

5-OP-ED: C. Karel Bouley: M amendments were wrong battle

6-OP-ED: B. Bennett: Moral votes turned the tide

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1-NEWS: All marriage amendments pass

Amendment banning same-sex marriage passes in 11 states

LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/03/politics0419EST0627.DTL

Gay rights activists received a rebuke from the Deep South to North Dakota as voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage in a clean sweep for proponents of traditional one-man, one-woman unions.

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The margin Tuesday in North Dakota was 3-1 in favor -- the same as in Georgia and Kentucky as the proposal passed in all 11 states where it was on the ballot. The margin was 6-1 in Mississippi, while the amendment was also approved in Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah.

The issue was put on the ballot in six states through petition drives waged by conservative, church-backed citizens groups. But support of the amendment appeared widespread; in Ohio, it received equal support from men and women, blacks and whites.

Gay-rights activists quickly raised the possibility of court challenges in Georgia, Ohio and Mississippi, although supporters predicted the new laws would hold up.

"Will there be a challenge? Probably, probably," said Monte Stewart of the pro-amendment "Yes on Three Coalition" in Utah. "Will it succeed? No."

The most disappointing outcome for gay activists was in Oregon, where supporters of same-sex marriage felt they had the best chance of success.

For gay rights groups, the one-sided results, while disheartening, were optimistically seen as just one strike in an ongoing fight.

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Earlier this year, voters in Missouri and Louisiana came out in favor of gay marriage ban amendments. Louisiana's amendment was later struck down in state court on the grounds that it improperly dealt with more than one subject by banning not only same-sex marriage but also any legal recognition of common-law relationships, domestic partnerships and civil unions.

Gay-rights activists intend to press marriage-rights lawsuits in states like California and New Jersey, where they believe the high courts might eventually rule in their favor.

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2-NEWS: Gay reaction to marriage amendments

Gay Civil Rights Groups Struggle With Defeats

by Paul Johnson 365Gay.com Washington Bureau Chief

Posted: November 3, 2004 1:55 pm ET

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/11/110304GayRxn.htm

Washington) LGBT civil rights groups call Tuesdays election results in which 11 states passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage "disheartening" but vow they will not be deterred. "This is only round one of a very long fight," Matt Foreman, the Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force told 365Gay.com. Foreman said despite the losses he is encouraged that one in five who cast votes in states considering amendments cast a vote against the measure. "That's remarkable on its own," he said. Foreman also said that the amendments and the negative campaigns run by Republicans and Christian fundamentalist groups helped fuel the President's victory Tuesday. "This was a political strategy to energize the vote for Pres. Bush," said Foreman, adding that Task Force data showed in many states it did not work. Sen. John Kerry increased the number of votes cast for Al Gore and in Michigan in 200 Foreman noted. "In Ohio more people voted for pres than for the amendment. That shows the strategy failed," he said. An angry Cheryl Jacques, President of the Human Rights Campaign said, "These amendments protect no one but instead discriminate against millions of American families." In a conference call with reporters Wednesday Jacques ultimately gay and lesbian couples seeking to marry will prevail. ... Both Lambda Legal and the ACLU which are fighting for same-sex marriage in the courts in a number of states said they were energized by the election. But, Eric Ferrero of Lambda Legal cautioned that it is much harder to change a constitution than to change a statute, "so it is now harder to reverse the harm to families." But, said Ferrero, "we remain confident that time is on our side." In Georgia, Lambda Legal, along with an Atlanta law firm and the ACLU of Georgia, will file a lawsuit in state court, challenging the amendment to Georgia's constitution that voters passed Tuesday.

"The case, which will be filed as soon as the election results are certified, argues that the process for voting on the amendment was illegal, partly because the wording the voters actually saw on the ballot didn't reflect everything that will wind up in the state's constitution," he said. "No movement for freedom has ever had a smooth path to progress, and the movement to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is no different," said Matt Coles, Director of the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "In at least Oregon, more than 45 per cent of the people voted not to keep same-sex couples out of marriage. Only 10 years ago, we could hardly get 30 per cent of the public anywhere." ...

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3-NEWS: Pro-m reaction to marriage amendments

Conservatives cheer gay marriage bans

By DAVID CRARY

AP NATIONAL WRITER http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1135&slug=ELN%20Gay%20Marriage&searchdiff=0&searchpagefrom=1

Elated by an 11-for-11 rejection of gay marriage in state elections, conservatives Wednesday urged Congress to follow suit by approving a federal constitutional amendment that would extend the prohibition nationwide. The state victories "are a prelude to the real battle," said Matt Daniels, whose Alliance for Marriage has pushed for congressional action. "Ultimately, only our Federal Marriage Amendment will protect marriage." Gay activists, though dejected by the overwhelming rebuff, vowed to keep fighting in the courts for marriage rights. Several lawsuits are pending, and more are planned. Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force described the election results as "a right hook to the chin ... but certainly not a knockout." Said Oregon activist Roey Thorpe, "...Conservative leaders depicted the result as a nationwide repudiation of the November 2003 ruling by the high court in Massachusetts legalizing same-sex marriage there. No other state has followed suit. "Christians here and around the nation consider this a great victory for the institution of marriage," said Rod Parsley, pastor of World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio. "We had to stand up and say 'Enough is enough.'" Robert Knight of the conservative Culture and Family Institute said the results should motivate Congress to reconsider a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage - a measure which earlier this year failed to get the needed two-thirds support in the House and Senate because of strong Democratic opposition. "Historically, amendments to the constitution only happen after consensus is reached - they don't get passed when conflict is raging," Knight said. "But now we're moving quickly toward consensus. A lot of Democrats may have a change of heart." Activists on both sides say the state amendments approved Tuesday - and similar measures adopted previously in six other states - guard against state court rulings like the one in Massachusetts. However, the newly approved bans could be overturned by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that cited the federal Constitution, which is why conservatives want an anti-gay amendment passed by Congress. Lawsuits seeking marriage rights or challenging bans on same-sex marriage have been filed in Oregon, Nebraska, Washington, California, New York and New Jersey. Georgia's newly approved ban will be challenged soon by lawyers contending that the measure's ballot summary did not convey its potentially sweeping impact on same-sex couples. Lambda Legal, which is involved in many of the lawsuits, urged gay couples to turn to the courts only if there was a reasonable chance of victory. "We'll discourage additional litigation if it runs a serious risk of resulting in a loss that could set us back many years," Lambda Legal attorney David Buckel said in a strategy memo. While the amendments in Mississippi, Montana and Oregon deal only with marriage, the measures in the other eight states also ban civil unions. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, there are roughly 2 million people in those states who live in households headed by same-sex couples and could be harmed by the amendments - including state university employees whose domestic partnership benefits could be in jeopardy in Michigan, Ohio and Utah.

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4-NEWS: MA legislature election and ssm

GAY-MARRIAGE FALLOUT

Walsh fends off tough challenge

By Scott S. Greenberger, Globe Staff | November 3, 2004 http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/11/03/gay_marriage_debate_dominated_a_few_races/

In his bid to unseat state Senator Marian Walsh of West Roxbury, independent challenger Robert W. Joyce figured his opposition to gay marriage would play well in her heavily Catholic district. In the waning hours of the campaign, he left voice mail messages stressing his stance. It didn't work; Walsh won yesterday with nearly 65 percent of the vote. Savoring her victory last night, Walsh said she believes voters were put off by Joyce's emphasis on same-sex marriage. "Voters want balanced candidates. They don't want single-issue candidates," she said. "..."It was a big night for us. We're very, very pleased," said Marty Rouse, campaign director at MassEquality, a gay-rights group that spent $700,000 and supplied hundreds of volunteers to help candidates backing their stance in more than 20 races. But gay-marriage opponents also claimed victory last night. "The incumbents that were on our side on the marriage issue were victorious, even though they were significantly challenged," said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute. "There was a tremendous onslaught against them from the opponents to traditional marriage, and they held their ground." Representative Philip Travis, Democrat of Rehoboth, who has opposed both gay marriage and civil unions, defeated Steven S. Howitt, a Republican challenger who supported gay marriage, to keep his seat. Republican state Representative Shirley Gomes of South Harwich, who supports civil unions but not gay marriage, defeated Sarah Peake, who was backed by gay-rights groups. And in a rematch of their special-election battle last March, Wrentham Republican Scott P. Brown, a gay-marriage opponent, narrowly defeated Democrat Angus McQuilken of Millis, a supporter. In another race framed partly by the issue of same-sex marriage, state Representative Kathleen M. Teahan, a Whitman Democrat, defeated Edward "Ned" Kirby, a Republican who ran because he objected to Teahan's support of gay marriage. The issue also was at the forefront in a heated battle between Vincent P. Ciampa, a longtime Somerville representative, and Carl M. Sciortino Jr., who is gay. Sciortino, also of Somerville, was outraged that Ciampa had voted to deny him marriage rights, and he narrowly defeated Ciampa in the September Democratic primary. Ciampa mounted a write-in campaign, but it appeared to fall far short last night. ...

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5-OP-ED: C. Karel Bouley: Marriage amendments were wrong battle

A failure of will

Want to know why 11 out of 11 states yesterday voted away your rights to marriage and, in several cases, civil unions? Two reasons: (1) You don’t want it enough, and (2) it’s the wrong battle By Charles Karel Bouley II

An Advocate.com exclusive, posted November 3, 2004

http://advocate.com/html/stories/926/926_bouley_election.asp

November 2, 2004. It was Election Day in the United States, and not since Ali versus Frazier in 1971 has there been such a battle. In fact, this campaign has been a lot like a boxing match: brutal, full of testosterone, and basically one big pissing contest and infinitely as useless. It bruised and battered American voters and divided the electorate like never before. George Bush, the self-proclaimed unifier, has single-handedly started a social civil war: the red versus the blue.

One of the casualties of this war has been those unfortunate enough to be members of any group that provides wedge issues. Are you a pregnant woman thinking about abortion? You’re a wedge issue. Michael J. Fox? Wedge issue, or at least the finding of a treatment for his Parkinson’s disease through embryonic stem cell research is one. And then there’s the mother of all wedge issues, same-sex marriage.

Yesterday—November 2, 2004—11 states, almost one fifth of the electorate, voted on state constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage. All received overwhelming approval. As Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force told the Associated Press in a story posted on CNN.com on October 31, 2004, "We are huge underdogs in every one of these battles. Our side simply does not have the time, the resources or the infrastructure to beat back the forces being unleashed against us in this election year."

"Beat back the forces being unleashed against us in this election year" sounds downright cataclysmic and very biblical. Of course, it is biblical, as these amendments again show that the United States of America wants more to be like a theocracy each and every day. But it also makes the gay and lesbian community sound like poor hobbits at the whim of the mighty wizards, cowering Gollums in the shadows of Gondor.

And while that prevalent attitude is bad enough, what’s worse is that eight of the 11 states passed amendments also intended to ban civil unions, thereby throwing up yet another roadblock to any kind of equality under the law. The battle for marriage may have lost us the war we should have been fighting for all along: equality under the law under any name. Sometimes separate and equal is fine, especially in matters of rights granted by law.

But in our gay leaders’ infinite wisdom someone decided it was all or nothing, make marriage equality the issue without compromise. Civil unions? Not enough. Hogwash. We won’t be second-class citizens. Well, how many of you feel first class today?

Almost four years ago now I lost my husband—yes, I considered him that without any paperwork—to what I believe to be medical malpractice. Today—November 3, 2004—my case sits on appeal in the Los Angeles Superior Court, awaiting judges to determine whether I have any legal standing at all. They’re not deciding the medical merits of the case; it’s taken almost four years just for someone to say whether I can sue after living with Andrew as a couple for 11 1/2 years, having filed a domestic partnership agreement, and having been as married as any two people could be.

Now, if California already had AB 205—the new domestic-partnership law that takes effect in January 2005 and gives same-sex partners more legal standing and more responsibilities—when Andrew died, this wouldn’t be an issue. But the lawyers on the side of the hospital argue that the rights AB 205 grants to domestic partners in the state didn’t start until after his death, although that issue is debatable, since there is an apparent retroactive clause. Why do I even need to know this? Why should this even be on my mind? Why couldn’t I sue like any other spouse? Because so many wanted marriage instead of domestic partnership or civil unions that now we’re ending up with neither.

As I read the optimistic outlook of it all by Evan Woflson, executive director of Freedom to Marry posted on this Web site, I have to say, Are you serious? You sound like a gay party doll as much as Ann Coulter is a Republican party doll. Victory trumps loss, lose it forward, bring about generational change... Oh, it all sounds good on paper, but the fact is, we’re big losers, and Foreman was right: Our side does not have the time, the resources, or the infrastructure to beat back the zealots.

And why don’t we? Because not enough of us care about it, because not enough of us want it, that’s why. Don’t give me all this disempowered, disenfranchised, battered, low-self-esteem don’t-blame-us psychobabble. If we all wanted same-sex marriage or federally recognized civil unions, we’d have them. Because trust me, as a collective, we’ve got nothing but time and more resources at our disposal than our nongay counterparts, and if we connected ourselves to something more than online meeting places, we’d have quite an infrastructure.

But we simply don’t want it.

That’s just the way it is. It’s the same with everything in life. Is your relationship unhappy? Well, it’s because you don’t want a happy one. You’re not willing to do the work to get one, even if that work means getting out of the one you’re in and finding a new one or resolving that you may not need the relationship that you think you need. Or worse, just relaxing for a while and watching things unfold. Unhappy at work? It’s because you are willing to sacrifice something for the paycheck, whatever that may be: your dignity, your pride, your creativity, whatever you’re giving up that’s making you miserable and you’re too lazy or scared to do something about.

The gay community seems to have George W. Bush syndrome: We cannot admit we were wrong, even in the face of more defeats than wins. When George W. Bush called for a Federal Marriage Amendment, we should have had the political clout to say, Fine, we won’t push gay and lesbian marriage, but we’ll only not make an issue out of it if you give us a national domestic-partner registry with all the legal rights of marriage. There was a compromise, but we didn’t have the clout to push for it because we didn’t want to push for it.

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6-OP-ED: B. Bennett: Moral votes turned the tide

The Great Relearning

Let it begin.

By Bill Bennett National Review Online http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bennett200411031109.asp

Well, it wasn't the Clinton economy we longed for; and it wasn't just the war on terrorism that occupied us. Ethics and moral values were ascendant last night — on voters minds, in Americans' hearts. To be sure, every anthropologist loves his own tribe, and I have long advocated a stronger tie between politics and the virtues. Last night it was evident that the American people agree. Ohio, which may very well have lost more jobs than any other state, delivered President Bush his electoral victory. West Virginia looks much the same... And the eleven state proposals to ban the redefinition of marriage all succeeded overwhelmingly. On this last point, one veteran political reporter told me, "I heard again and again from people connected to, and members of, black churches who did not look kindly on gay marriage, and were very motivated against it. They, more than anyone else, did not see it as a civil right — and were angered by those who claimed it was." ... President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it. Now is the time to begin our long, national cultural renewal ("The Great Relearning," as novelist Tom Wolfe calls it) — no less in legislation than in federal court appointments. It is, after all, the main reason George W. Bush was reelected. — William J. Bennett is the host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Bill Bennett's Morning in America, and the Washington Fellow at the Claremont Institute.