FL Amendment banning same-sex marriages closing in on ballot spot in November 2008

Amendment banning same-sex marriages closing in on ballot spot in November 2008

Opponents stress that measure could affect straight couples
By ANNA SCOTT
anna.scott@heraldtribune.com

A constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Florida is closing in on a spot on the 2008 ballot, triggering a political battle that could sway voters in a presidential year.Florida4Marriage, the group pushing the amendment, has 597,000 signatures and needs only 13,000 more to put it before voters.Proponents of the ban are heartened by polls showing that the amendment has a good chance of getting the 60 percent of votes necessary for passage."People intuitively understand why marriage should be between a man and a woman," said John Stemberger, head of Florida4Marriage. "This campaign is not a shot in the dark."But the issue is more complicated than it sounds.Same-sex marriage is already illegal in Florida, because it is a state that adopted the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Writing that into the state constitution would prevent state judges from overturning the law to allow gay marriage, as the state Supreme Court did in Massachusetts.But in some states, bans similar to the one proposed in Florida have opened the door to lawsuits challenging all domestic partnership benefits.In Florida, some cities, including Tampa, Gainesville and Miami Beach, have domestic partner registries, where unmarried couples, gay or straight, can sign up and be allowed to share health insurance benefits in government jobs, and also receive medical cards allowing each other to visit in the hospital.In Southwest Florida, such benefits are only offered in the private sector, which has not been challenged under the bans in other states, but which opponents of the ban say is possible.But when the amendment passed in Michigan, an appeals court ruled that because of the amendment, local and state government offices could no longer legally allow same-sex couples to share benefits such as health insurance. That case is before the Michigan Supreme Court.Opponents of the amendment in Florida say the same thing could happen here in government offices where domestic partnership benefits are offered, and that even private-sector businesses could be open to lawsuits.Hoping to imitate the success in Arizona, the only state to vote down the gay-marriage ban, opponents of the amendment are focusing on the the potential for those kinds of lawsuits, not the polarizing issue of gay marriage.Organizers are courting straight couples in committed relationships to help convince voters to turn down the amendment.Their central message is that the amendment could prevent all unmarried couples from receiving the benefits or protections that married couples receive, and that it could bring financial hardship to seniors especially."Voters need to be aware that this issue isn't limited to having to do with gay and lesbian people," said Derek Newton, leader of Florida Red and Blue, a nonpartisan group formed in May to fight the ban. "Anyone who's not married or at some point in the future may not be married, this is going to impact them."The Florida Red and Blue campaign features Wayne Rauen and Helene Milman, senior citizens from Sunrise who have been together for 24 years but are not married, because then Milman would lose her late husband's pension.Stemberger, head of Florida4Marriage, said the campaign is using a "scare tactic.""They can't talk about gay marriage because if they did they would have to discuss the public policy merits and there aren't any," Stemberger said. "What they did in Arizona is a very pathetic strategy of scaring senior citizens into losing their benefits. That has nothing to do with anything."The obscurity lies in the language of the amendment, which reads: "Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized."Stemberger argues that challenges to domestic partnerships are unlikely because the amendment is close enough to the current Florida state law banning same-sex marriage. That law was previously used to challenge domestic partnership benefits, but the court ruled in favor of protecting the benefits.A legislative analysis of the amendment said a relationship that was the "substantial equivalent of marriage" was ambiguous and could lead to lawsuits to overturn domestic partnership benefits.The issue has split top Republican presidential candidates. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he firmly supports a ban. But former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he thought it is unnecessary, but would support one if several states tried to legalize gay marriage."I don't think we need a constitutional amendment at this point," Giuliani said at a Fox News debate in Orlando last month.Gay marriage has also been a challenging issue for Democrats. When Sen. Hillary Clinton is asked whether she supports gay marriage, she says she prefers to think about it as being "very positive" about civil unions.Florida Red and Blue has raised more than $1 million since it formed in May. That is twice as much as Florida4Marriage has raised in two years.The bulk of contributions to Florida4Marriage came from the Florida Republican Party, which has not made any donations since Gov. Charlie Crist took office this year. Crist signed the Florida4Marriage petition in favor of the ban, but earlier this spring said the GOP was wasting its money on the effort and urged the party to spend on other priorities.Supporters of the ban hope to get a boost from a $75 per ticket fundraiser on Nov. 16 in Hollywood, where Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson will be headlining.That the issue could spike the number of voters, particularly conservative voters, at the polls makes opponents more anxious to defeat it."To defeat it in the South in a presidential election year will have ripple effects," Nadine Smith, president of Equality Florida, told Democrats at the party's state convention last month. "It's a wedge issue in a battleground state in a key election year."One side effect of the Florida campaign against the amendment is that some homosexuals feel slighted because the message is not centered on promoting positive opinions of gay marriage, but rather showing how heterosexual couples would be affected."It's a little sad," said Bryan Worthington of Venice, president of the local Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered caucus. "If there were no way to link the effects of this amendment to straight people, then it would pass in a heartbeat. But we have to do what it takes, and it will end up affecting the rights of all people, gay or straight."Others are worried that, regardless of how many straight people have a stake in voting against the amendment, voters will still view it as a gay issue and that it will strengthen opposition to gays and their lifestyle.Joel May, a Sarasota architect who married his partner three years ago in Canada, lived in Colorado in 1992 when that state passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage. He said the backlash against gays was immediate."I knew people who were beaten up, and I had swastikas carved into my car because it had a rainbow sticker on it," May said. "It was open season."He moved to Sarasota for what he saw as a "live and let live" atmosphere, and he is afraid a campaign to ensure gay marriage will never be legalized in this state has the potential to threaten that."When you set up an atmosphere of hate or segregation or discrimination, or separate-but-equal, this is what you're doing," he said. "No one can convince me otherwise. I've seen it."