Legal Precedent Favors Protect Marriage Arizona

NEWS & ANALYSIS

Legal Precedent Favors Protect Marriage Arizona Initiative

By Dennis Durband, Editor
July 22, 2006

The Arizona Together Coalition (ATC), a small organization of liberals, held a press conference recently in Tucson to explain why it filed a lawsuit against the Protect Marriage Arizona (PMA) initiative. PMA is a citizens’ voter initiative designed to protect marriage from activist judges; it will be on the November ballot in Arizona and is projected by pollsters to pass.

ATC is fronted by State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema and former legislator Steve May. Their group filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court July 12 claiming the initiative violates the Separate Amendment Rule by seeking to incorporate in one ballot measure at least three separate issues.

If the Tucson press conference is indicative of ATC’s strategy, it will not make a full-scale assault on the definition of marriage as an institution designed for one man and one women. Instead, the liberal coalition is attacking on the alleged basis that the proposed amendment to the state constitution denies domestic partner benefits and that it circumvents the requirement that state ballot propositions accomplish only one task.

A senior woman speaking at the press conference said that she and her male partner “are unable to marry due to financial responsibilities and requirements due to the social security amendment.” She claimed the PMA amendment “is not being worded properly and not being pulled together properly.”

A pastor from the liberal-leaning United Methodist denomination said the amendment will deprive people of medical care.

Another elderly woman claimed that if PMA passes, “we will be in sad shape.”

A senior man claimed the marriage amendment will “take away our hospital visitation rights.”

ATC speakers also demanded that the alleged multiple items on the proposition be voted on separately.

Protect Marriage Arizona coalition members recognize that marriage is under attack – in Arizona and around the United States. In 2003, two homosexual men went to Maricopa County Superior Court in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn state marriage law. Well-funded activists are attempting to use the courts to redefine marriage in America, and they succeeded in Massachusetts when Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice, an activist herself, mandated same-sex marriage in that state – disenfranchising the voters in the process.

The amendment does not take away the existing benefits of state employees or retirees. It merely states that the State of Arizona will only provide marriage benefits to people who are married.

PMA is stressing that the people of Arizona should be the ones who decide this issue. Let the people decide the definition of marriage in Arizona, not activist judges. A state constitutional amendment allows the people of the state of Arizona to retain the ability to decide the definition of marriage in the state.

A state constitutional amendment provides the strongest possible legal protection for marriage against redefinition by activist state judges.

Marriage has social value and benefits Arizona. Arizona promotes marriage because marriage is the fundamental building block of society. Children do better in life when they have the security of living with a married mother and father. Society is strong when the institution of marriage is strong. With all the challenges to marriage in society, the last thing Arizona needs is to fundamentally redefine marriage. Arizona promotes marriage because marriage benefits society. Redefining marriage, on the other hand, is an untested social experiment.

Children do best when they have a mom and a dad. Social scientists are in unanimous agreement on that.

Liberalizing marriage laws will only lead to polygamy and other distortions if marriage is not protected.

The voters of 20 other states have already amended their state constitutions, and Arizona is one of seven more attempting to do the same this year. Homosexual activists routinely challenge these results, and there is legal precedent on PMA’s side.

Louisiana voters overwhelmingly passed their state marriage amendment in 2004, only to have the will of the people overturned by a liberal district judge. The state Supreme Court reinstated the people’s vote and declared that the district court had acted improperly in claiming the amendment violated the one-task requirement.

Lee Hargrave, Louisiana Supreme Court justice, ruled that an examination of the amendment reveal it “contains a single plan to defend our civil tradition of marriage. In effect, the amendment provides the only contract or legal instrument whereby the state is mandated to bestow all or substantially all the rights, civil effects, and legal incidents of marriage upon the parties in recognition of the legal status created or established by said contract or instrument is the contract of marriage between one man and one woman. We find that each provision constitutes an element of this plan.”