Bay Windows - January 29, 2004
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com.

"We're going to have the worst political year our community has had since the AIDS crisis," predicts Dave Fleischer, director of organizing and training for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF). He said Republicans hope that their vocal opposition to same-sex marriage will help them win votes in the 2004 elections.

At the state level opponents of same-sex marriage have pursued a number of legislative strategies. The bulk of these efforts involve amending the federal and state constitutions to prevent courts from issuing rulings similar to Goodridge.

In some states legislators have introduced resolutions asking Congress to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Proponents of the FMA argue that the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which banned gay marriage at the federal level and allowed states to withhold recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages, could be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. President George W. Bush expressed conditional support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in his Jan. 21 State of the Union address.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said that legislatures in seven states-Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia- are currently considering resolutions that would urge Congress to support the FMA.

According to the Associated Press the resolution in Virginia sailed through the House of Delegates Jan. 23 in a 77-18 vote. Virginia banned gay marriage in 1997 with a state DOMA law, but Del. Robert F. McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, the lead sponsor of the current resolution, said that both the state and federal DOMA were vulnerable to attack in the courts.

"We don't want to be left in the lurch where the measure we passed overwhelmingly several years ago is stricken down by the high court of this country and then we have no policy in Virginia," McDonnell told the AP.

Beyond offering support for the FMA, legislators in several states are urging the passage of state DOMA bills and other legislation forbidding or limiting the recognition of same-sex marriages. Thirty-seven states currently have DOMA laws in place; Ohio is poised to join them. The Ohio Senate approved a DOMA bill Jan. 21 that had already passed in the House. According to news reports the governor is expected to sign the bill after the House reviews minor changes made in the Senate.

DOMA bills have also been introduced in New Hampshire and New Jersey, and legislators in some states with existing DOMA laws, including Kentucky, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia, have introduced legislation to strengthen or broaden those laws, according to HRC.

Constitutional amendments that expressly ban gay marriage are perhaps the most drastic forms of DOMA legislation. Such an effort is underway in the Bay State, but Massachusetts law insures that a voter initiative to ban same-sex marriage through a constitutional amendment would appear on the ballot no earlier than 2006. Fleischer said that in many states the process is much faster, and he said an amendment initiative could appear on the ballot in many states as early as this November, with others following next year.

Colin Cunliff, field coordinator for Texas' Lesbian and Gay Rights Lobby, said that legislators in Texas have discussed filing an amendment bill during the 2005 legislative session (the Texas legislature convenes on alternating years). He said the Texas Constitution is worded in such a way that it can be amended fairly easily; of the 22 amendments proposed in the 2003 session, Cunliff said, all of them passed.

Like many of the states considering amendment bills, Texas already has a DOMA law in place. A gay marriage ban was enacted in 1973, and a 2003 DOMA law prohibited state recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions performed out of state.

"Basically since we already had a law [banning same-sex marriage] further laws just serve as an official value statement," said Cunliff.

According to NGLTF there are currently fourteen states-Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin - where legislation has been filed to ban same-sex marriage through a state constitutional amendment. HRC expects Alabama to file legislation; Fleischer said NGLTF anticipates the aforementioned Texas bill, and both HRC and NGLTF expect a bill in Minnesota.

Amendment bills that were filed in Arizona and Indiana have been dropped for this session, according to HRC. In both cases the heads of the legislative committees where the bills were under consideration confirmed that they planned to take no action on the amendment bills.

Fleischer said that same-sex marriage advocates in most states are unprepared for defeating a ballot initiative around a constitutional amendment.

"Most state LGBT groups have done some worthwhile work and built only modest political support," said Fleischer. He said NGLTF plans to conduct regional training sessions for same-sex marriage advocates, including one in Boston March 25-28, to teach local activists how to build a network of confirmed gay and pro-gay voters within their state.

"When we do that voter identification work, we win ... and where we don't do that work, we lose," said Fleischer.

Cunliff agreed, saying that voter identification allows activists both to find sympathetic voters and to mobilize them on Election Day.

"Once you have... some sort of contact [with gay and pro-gay voters], when the elections come around you can make contact with them and get them out to vote," said Cunliff.

Fleischer predicted that state battles around gay marriage could escalate if Massachusetts legalizes same-sex marriage at the end of the 180-day stay on the SJC's ruling. He said opponents of same-sex marriage would use stereotypical images of gay and lesbian married couples in Massachusetts to convince voters in the rest of the country to oppose same-sex marriage. The most effective response, he said, is for the GLBT community to reach out to straight voters and tell their own stories.

"Whatever phony image has been manufactured by our opponents is replaced by the reality," said Fleischer. "When we succeed in humanizing this issue, that's when we turn it around."

Mark Shields, HRC's deputy director of media relations, said that while a number of initiatives against same-sex marriage are on the horizon, gay marriage advocates should also focus on potential victories. He said California legislators plan to introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the state, and domestic partnership laws passed in California in 2003 and in New Jersey on Jan. 12.

He said the Massachusetts SJC decision and the amendment battles around the country have placed marriage at the forefront of the lesbian and gay movement.

"We characterize this as being the best of times and the worst of times," said Shields. "... Regardless of what state people live in, this is a call to action."

040129
BY040102

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