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.
I'd bet that many of the people who voted for the amendment are all across the political spectrum. I myself know several libs to moderates here in CA who do not like the idea of "gay marriage", but would support something like civil unions.
I think they're whining because they dropped so much money to defeat it, and lost by an even bigger margin than they expected to, and it always sounds good to them to blame those nasty, mean Republicans.
I question the timing of this vote.....
LOL!
Hey, morons! Could it be that the people have told you sicko queers loud and clear that they want no part of your perversion, and they certainly don't want to legitimize it? Why not just get over it and slither back into the closet where you belong?
That line about large numbers of voters is amusing.
Haven't we been told for years that a high voter turnout favors Dem issues and candidates? They have insinuated that Dems voters outnumber GOP voters (they do only when the cemetaries disgorge their residents on election day... we observe Halloween on the wrong day! The dead rise on election eve, not on All Hallows Eve!)
Yeah, the devil always hates it when people of faith get shaken from their complacency and take a stand.
Are you addressing me in particular, and if so, why?
I see an admendment as protecting the Constitution from assults by overreaching activist judges who legislate from the bench. Certainly a constitutional amendment reigning in judges from making laws might be a better step, but defining marriage will send a huge message to liberal judges. Judges right now are effectively changing our Constitution from the bench which is a real threat to our whole system government. A marriage amendment is not.
You are exactly right.
This was originally set up to be voted on in the General Election in November. The Dem Governor (soon to be ex) sued to move it to the Primary Election. It ended up going to the Missouri Supreme Court (Liberal) and they put it at the Primary Election.
The Gays thought that Primary turnout would be light and they could get their groups out in force. The didn't realize how energized the electorate would be.
Can you say BACKLASH??
"You have to admit the timing of this amendment vote is very suspicious."
No, very smart! The Demos thought the issue of
"Fetal Stem Cell Research" was going to be their Ace. Fooled you!! This gay marriage issue is also helping us to turn out Mennonite and other non-voting groups in Pennsylvania. ("Don't cry for me, Ma Taresa!")
This and the Vets Against Kerry issue....will sink "Scary Kerry".
Yep. He's really fallen off the wagon.
So what? They're going to make that accusation no matter what we do or do not do. It's because they always make the assumption that we are as dirty as they are.
Hey! Leave us outta this. The voters of California passed a Defense of Marriage law a couple of years ago. It was the mayor of San Fran that went against the law and married the happy, shiny people anyway.
Heaven forfend that the homosexual lobby have its feelings hurt.
Give it up, gays. You can still write your Living and Last Wills to designate anyone you like as your durable power of attorney and beneficiary. Stop trying to horn in on the sanctity of marriage under the guise that you don't already have those very basic legal rights.
Ping
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