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Thursday, November 09, 2006
Why Arizona, or Why Not Wisconsin (cont.)
The Arizona Republic's Nov. 9 report on the apparent loss of the Arizona Marriage Amendment. NOTE: supporter of Prop 107 aren't conceding defeat. Apparently several hundred thousand absentee ballots remain to be counted: "Consistent message doomed Prop. 107
Loss of benefits to unwed pairs loomed large
Amanda J. Crawford
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 9, 2006 12:00 AM
When supporters of Arizona's Proposition 107 talked about the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, they talked about protecting traditional marriage from the threat of same-sex unions.
When opponents talked about it, they talked about how it would cost some people health insurance benefits, including straight people.
As the last ballots are still being counted, it appears Arizonans are likely to be the first in the nation to reject a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, with the amendment trailing 49 percent to 51 percent. Even though supporters refused to concede defeat on Wednesday, noting hundreds of thousands of early votes still not counted, both sides of the campaign agreed that the opponents' ability to stay consistent in their message about the impact of the initiative on domestic partners resonated with Arizona's libertarian-minded electorate. . ." The opposition to Prop 107 takes credit and describes its singleminded focus. It wasn't building support for gay marriage or even gay civil unions: "At a press conference declaring victory on the Arizona Capitol lawn Wednesday, opponents outlined the pinpointed strategy, developed after research and polling, that appears to have made national history. If voters thought the issue was just about gay marriage, they admit, the amendment might have passed by a wide margin.
"Our early research clearly identified the message that would resonate with Arizona voters," said Joe Yuhas, a political consultant with Arizona Together, the opposition campaign. The group said research showed Arizonans would oppose the amendment when they understood the effect on domestic partners.
Cathi Herrod, spokeswoman for the Proposition 107 campaign, Protect Marriage Arizona, said opponents obscured the real issue: gay marriage.
Early on in the Protect Marriage Arizona campaign, supporters of the amendment were not straightforward about the impact the measure would have on domestic partners. Meanwhile, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale-based conservative Christian legal group, and other supporters were filing lawsuits in other states saying similar amendments there meant local governments could no longer provide employees with domestic-partner benefits.
Arizona Together recruited several heterosexual couples to sue, saying that the amendment shouldn't go before voters because it did more than just ban gay marriage. While the courts disagreed and allowed the amendment to go forward on the ballot, the court case set the record straight: the amendment would bar governments from providing benefits based on domestic partnerships.
Arizona Together latched on to that message in commercials showing straight couples who could lose benefits and those who could lose the legal protections afforded by Tucson's domestic-partner registry, which also would be struck down.
"We knew all along that when voters understood what this initiative would do to thousands of Arizona families across the state they were opposed to it," said Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, chairwoman of the Arizona Together campaign. "So our goal all along was to help voters understand that this initiative, if passed, would take away health care from families across the state, would take away legal protection from families across the state and take away domestic benefits from families across the state."
Chris Stovall, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defense Fund, said in 2004, when several states passed marriage amendments, opponents focused on discrimination against gay couples and equal rights. This year, opponents across the nation focused instead on benefits. But no campaign in the nation stuck to that message like Arizona Together.
"That continued to be the drumbeat. . . . They were very disciplined and consistent on that message," he said.
Critics have said that opponents were disingenuous because they seemed to avoid talking about gay couples or same-sex unions at all. None of the couples featured in Arizona Together's commercial were same-sex, but much of the funding came from gay couples and the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's leading gay rights group. . ." UPDATE: The No on Prop 107 website is here. if you want to see for yourself.
posted by maggie at
8:29 PM | link
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Let's talk about who is really lying in the so-called "Defense" of Marriage movement. Those opposed to equal rights/rites for same-sex couples are saying they want to protect "traditional" marriage, but all the recent amendments have excluded domestic partnership and civil unions as a way to extend fairness to same-sex couples.
If you want to defend marriage, attack the irresponsible heterosexuals who treat marriage as a throwaway commodity, not the wish to commit among same-sex couples.
By the way: what do you mean by "traditional" marriage? Is this a code word for women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen?
Traditional means the method by which generations are begotten... unlike how sex discriminative homosexual couplings traditionally cannot.
all the recent amendments have excluded domestic partnership and civil unions as a way to extend fairness to same-sex couples
Most of those states also exclude the establishment of common-law-marriage in their jurisdictions.
What's fairness?
Tolerance? Protection? If yes, then, why must the one-sex arrangment be granted more than tolerance and protection via the preferential status of marriage? Or via something that is marriage-like or even attached to marital status?
Marriage is unique. Merging it with DP or CU, as per the various gay-inspired variations, flattens marriage. It drops from being a preferred relationship to one that is treated on par with the protected relationship types; or the merely tolerated relationship types.
The state amendments, and the proposed federal amendment, would merely reaffirm the special status of marriage in society -- as reflected in our customs and traditions -- that arises from what marriage uniquely does: it integrates the sexes (man and woman) and combines that with responsible procreation (conceiving and bearing children together in a lifelong bond).
The one-sex arrangement does not contribute to that uniqueness. The homoexed relationship is just a subset of the one-sex arrangement. Most variations are not sexualized.
So two things that you need to do to justify the so-called "fairness" you propose to enact: 1) explain the independant claim (not linked to marital status) for raising the one-sexed arrangment from a tolerated, or in some cases a protected, class of relationship; and 2) explain how the homosexed version of one-sexed arrangements merits a preferential status while nonsexualized forms do not.
Marriage is unique.
What is unique about the homosexualized relationship type? Is it the same for both man-man as well as woman-woman combinations?
It is not marriage, so the the homosexualized relationship type ought to stand on its own two feet (instead of riding the back of marital status) and the nature of that relationship type ought to be shown to benefit society in such a way that society, through the authority of the state, ought to move the big hand of government to ensure more than tolerance, more than protection, and make it social policy to prefer that relationship type.
Why promote it? The participation rate in same-sex householding (which is a category more inclusive than DP, CU, or SSM) is very low among the adult homosexual population. Something like 11% reside in such households. It is practiced only on the margins within the homosexual population. The vast majority do not partake of it. This is so not just in the USA but around the world -- even in Scandinavia, Holland, and Canada -- as well as Masachusetts. And only a small portion would convert to SSM if it became available. This is not normative among adult homosexuals. So is this really about the government promoting homosexuals to imitate heterosexual "pair-bonding"? Or is it something else? If something else, what is it -- see the 2 questions above.
My bet is that most SSMers are interested in demoting state recognition of marriage in the name of "diversity" and the claim of equivalency (which masquerades as an equality claim), rather than anything that could be construed as strengthening the social institution of marriage.
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