Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Texas Becomes 19th State to Ban Same-Sex Marriage
(Link) Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the NGLTF: "When you put a fundamental right of a minority up for popular vote, it's almost impossible to win. I'm not sure the right to desegregate schools, the freedom to marry another race or even access to contraception in many states would exist if those issues were put up for a vote."
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JIC Post:
By Janet Elliot
Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN - Voters overwhelmingly approved writing a ban on same-sex marriage into the Texas constitution Tuesday, giving social conservatives a key victory going into next year's state elections.
The controversial proposition was supported by Gov. Rick Perry and many churches throughout the state.
"That's where the victory was won, from the pulpits of the state of Texas," said state Rep. Warren Chisum, a Pampa Republican who wrote the amendment. "The people of Texas have spoken and they intend that marriage should be between one man and one woman."
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said the outcome was not unexpected.
"When you put a fundamental right of a minority up for popular vote, it's almost impossible to win," said Foreman. "I'm not sure the right to desegregate schools, the freedom to marry another race or even access to contraception in many states would exist if those issues were put up for a vote."
Seventy-six percent of voters favored the amendment and 24 percent opposed it, with 94 percent of the vote counted. Foreman and Chisum said Texas is the 18th state to adopt an anti-gay marriage constitutional provision.
Six other amendments passed and two failed.
Turnout reached 17 percent statewide, higher than the 12 percent in 2003 when a controversial amendment limiting lawsuit damages was on the ballot.
In Harris County, turnout was about 14 percent with 70 percent of precincts reporting, though two Montrose-area precincts with substantial gay and lesbian populations reported turnouts of around 35 percent.
Although Texas has an existing law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, locking that definition into the state constitution would make it more difficult for a future Legislature to change.
The campaign featured references to the Bible and a high-profile rally by a handful of Ku Klux Klan members in Austin against same-sex marriages. Chisum and other backers of Proposition 2 distanced their cause from the Klan rally.
Initiative's wording debated
Both sides largely ran a grass-roots, word-of-mouth campaign, using some targeted television ads and phone banks to reach potential voters.
Opponents said the initiative's poor wording could effectively nullify all marriages. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott disagreed with that interpretation and recorded a phone message saying that the amendment did not threaten traditional marriages.
The amendment defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman" and prohibits the state from "creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage."
Surprise, surprise, suprprise...not really.
Reason #4396 not to date Texans.
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