Posted on 08/04/2004 8:42:02 PM PDT by neverdem
ST. LOUIS, Aug. 4 - Missouri voters' overwhelming decision to bar gay marriage with a constitutional amendment has sent a resounding message around the country.
With at least nine other states expected to vote on similar amendments this fall, including four swing states in the presidential race, leaders on each side of the issue viewed Missouri's 70 percent approval of the amendment on Tuesday as a glimpse of what might lie ahead.
Supporters of amendments to ban gay marriage in state like Ohio pointed to Missouri's record election turnout - 41 percent in a primary election that in most years draws 15 percent to 25 percent - as a clear and exhilarating sign that the issue will lure their voters to the polls in November.
"What this has done is brought the people of faith to the table like I have never seen before," said Phil Burress, chairman of the Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage, the group leading Ohio's effort to amend its Constitution. "This is what the Democrats biggest fear was - that something would energize the people of faith. And it has."
Opponents of the amendments said that they were distressed, even hurt, by the outcome in Missouri, but that they planned to study exactly what had happened in the brief months of campaigning there to learn which strategies had worked and which failed. The spending had been lopsided here, with supporters of gay marriage spending $450,000 to fight the measure with television advertising and polling, compared with $19,000 spent by opponents.
"Still, we were just a little bit out-organized," said Seth Kilbourn, national field director for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington group that helped pay for the Missouri opposition. "We can't let that happen again."
Missouri is only the first in a wave of states that have chosen to hold elections on the question since Massachusetts' highest court ruled last year that gay marriage was not prohibited under that state's Constitution. State law in Missouri and in more than 30 other states already bars same-sex marriages. But organizers in states around the nation said they feared situations like the one in Massachusetts and decided that amendments to their state constitutions were the only sure way to ward off a similar fate.
In the days leading up to Missouri's voting, polls had shown that the ban on gay marriage would very likely pass, but with the support of about 60 percent of voters, so the size of the approval startled some people. The amendment was backed by the majority in every county except the City of St. Louis, where it failed by about 3,500 votes out of about 60,000 cast.
Few had anticipated the scale of the turnout either. In state records kept since 1980, there had never been comparable participation in an August primary. Nearly 1.5 million people voted, a fact that Vicky Hartzler, spokeswoman for the Coalition to Protect Marriage in Missouri, attributed to grass-roots efforts, including notes in church bulletins, neighbors holding up signs along busy thoroughfares and preachers talking to their congregations.
"Even though we were outspent and we had a national political machine descend on our state to try and defeat this," Ms. Hartzler said, "people got out and worked and called neighbors and said a lot of prayers."
On Friday, leaders of Missouri's anti-gay-marriage effort will offer advice in a conference call to those pushing for amendments in other states, she said.
Her own best advice to the other states, Ms. Hartzler said, would not be about politics.
"The No. 1 thing is prayer," she said, "and a passion for protecting the sanctity of marriage."
The group that led the opposition to a ban in Missouri, the Constitution Defense League, said it would also probably share observations with its counterparts elsewhere. Next month, voters in Louisiana will cast ballots on a similar amendment, and even Christopher Daigle, a leader of the opposition there, conceded on Wednesday that he would not be surprised if that state's results mirrored Missouri's.
"I guess we had hoped there would better news from there so that might be able to provide some momentum and encouragement for us down here," Mr. Daigle said.
In November, 8 other states - and perhaps as many as 11 - will vote on similar provisions, placing the question of banning gay marriage on the same ballots as the presidential race. The swing states of Arkansas, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon are among the 11.
Some opponents of the amendments accused Republicans of using gay marriage as a tool to draw out large numbers of conservative voters in November.
"This is a deliberate effort to energize the right-wing base," said Ron Schlittler, the executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
Republican officials in Michigan and Ohio disputed those claims and pointed out that Massachusetts' highest court - not Republican political consultants - had prompted the flurry of proposed amendments.
Judge Backs Gay Marriage
SEATTLE, Aug. 4 (AP) - Gay couples can marry under Washington law, a judge ruled Wednesday, saying there was no evidence that same-sex marriages threatened children in nontraditional families.
Ruling in favor of a challenge to the law restricting marriage to one man and one woman, the judge, William L. Downing of King County Superior Court, also wrote that barring same-sex marriages served no "state interest" and violated the constitutional right of gay couples to due process.
Great post! It just goes to show that the libs have to resort to anti-democratic means (i.e. judges) to get their agenda through anymore. When it is put to a vote, it goes down flaming.
"Opponents...said that they were distressed, even hurt...but that they planned to study exactly what had happened...to learn which strategies had worked and which failed."
Let me help them, no charge! Marriage between a man and a woman (no matter how screwy they or it is) works, "marriage" between two men or two women (or whatever!) fails as a concept.
What part of biological reproduction and its cosmic importance do these people refuse to grasp?
LOL, that is the whole point of campaigns, to energize your base. The left is just pissed the right found a nuclear bomb to use for this November....
BAN HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGES
- they are NOT gay people!
The left is gonna accuse the right of politicing elections....
Which is exactly why the supporters wanted it on the primary ballot, rather than the general election ballot, when (they thought) there would be a higher turn-out.
The supporters say that they're shocked by the results. That makes sense, since the only people that they tend to "hang out with" are others of their type. They simply don't understand that there IS a "silent majority" who believes in more traditional values.
Mark
Wow, I never would have guessed this issue would energiz so many people. It is not one of my top issues I guess is why. This looks like it could really be a serious problem for the Democrats.
Strangly there are some odd members of the right (guys like Bob Barr) who oppose this type of reaction. Why? I haven't a clue. Somehow they think they're protecting the constitution by avoiding it being amendment, meanwhile the society it was gifted to falls apart.
you know what really bugs me? I have a lesbian friend (the lesbian being the part I don't like) and someone asked her what a gay man would call his spouse. "Husband, I guess" was the answer. How can you have husband and husband, or wife and wife - those are two words screaming for their complements - a husband is not a husband without a wife.
Mrs VS
No mention hear of how Missouri Gov. Holden shot himself in the foot.
He pushed to keep this out of the Nov. election, hoping to avoid conservatives from coming out then. But Holden managed to lose his own primary.... something terrible for an incumbent!
-- Joe
I think the libs in Missouri were pissed because no matter how long they left the polls open in St Louis, the vote kept getting worse and worse for them.
Huh. You mean the entire country ISN'T swept up in the stench of gay mania that has enveloped New England and the west coast? Surely you're not suggesting that the same-sex marriage pushers are out of touch with mainstream America?! You, sir, can shove it!
let them get marreid
Good - maybe now they'll go away and keep to themselves.
You have to admit the timing of this amendment vote is very suspicious.
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