Voters Approve Anti-LGBT Ballot Initiatives
Three State Constitutions Will be Amended to Ban Gay Marriage
© Kat Long
Nov 5, 2008
On November 4, 2008, voters in California, Arizona, and Florida were asked to decide on ballot measures that would eliminate or prevent same-sex marriages in their states. By decisive margins, Arizona and Florida voters approved propositions to amend their state constitutions to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. Voters approved California’s Proposition 8, which will eliminate the current right of same-sex couples to marry in that state, by a slim majority.
California’s Proposition 8: the Bellwether Ballot Measure
LGBT voters and social conservatives considered Proposition 8 in California the most important of the same-sex marriage measures, with its outcome signaling a trend for the rest of the country. One day after the polls closed the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Prop 8 passed by 52%, or about 5,164,000 votes, with 95% of precincts reported.
Proposition 8 will amend the California Constitution to specifically outlaw same-sex marriage. The amendment would be added to Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, to read, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
Same-sex marriage has been legal in California since June 15, 2008, when the state supreme court overturned an existing ban. The legal status of the approximately 18,000 LGBT couples who have wed since then is still undetermined, though one married lesbian couple is planning to file a suit that contends Prop 8 is unconstitutional, according to The Advocate.
The Prop 8 vote capped a $73 million campaign, the most expensive in state history.
Florida’s Amendment 2
Florida voters approved the state’s Amendment 2, the Florida Marriage Protection Act, which goes further toward erasing legal protections for same-sex couples than California’s Prop 8. Sixty-two percent of voters voted yes on the amendment, or 4,680,000 votes in favor, with 99% of the precincts reporting, according to the Miami Herald.
The text of the approved Amendment states, “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.”
A Florida state law already bans same-sex marriage, so the constitutional amendment was seen by opponents as an attempt to further invalidate same-sex (and opposite-sex) civil unions or domestic partnerships. Florida also explicitly prohibits LGBT couples and individuals from adopting children in Florida, the only state with such a restriction.
Arizona’s Proposition 102
Like Florida, Arizona had a state law banning same-sex marriage on the books prior to the vote on Proposition 102. Nevertheless, supporters of the proposition claimed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage was necessary to prevent judges from overturning the state law, according to the Arizona Republic. Prop 102 passed with more than 1,040,122 votes, or 56% of the total cast.
The amendment text reads, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”
In the 2006 general election, Arizonans defeated a similar ballot measure—to date, the only proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage to fail.
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