Protect Marriage Arizona Submits 307,000 Signatures to Secretary of State’s Office

By Dennis Durband, Editor
July 6, 2006

On the strength of an unprecedented citizens’ grassroots movement aiming to preserve marriage as a union between one man and one woman, the Protect Marriage Arizona (PMA) coalition submitted 307,576 signatures to the Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer's office this morning. Just over 183,000 signatures were required to place the proposition on the state’s November election ballot.

Every state placing a proposition to amend its constitution to preserve traditional marriage has successfully passed that initiative, and Arizona is expected to join the list. Coalition leaders are also confident the initiative will survive a legal challenge by homosexual activists working to legalize homosexual “marriage” in Arizona. Several states have already survived such legal challenges, and yesterday supreme courts in Georgia and New York acted to overthrow rogue lower courts and preserve marriage.

Nathan Sproul, campaign consultant for PMA, said, “This campaign is a true example of energized and organized grassroots enthusiasm. Almost 200,000 of the signatures collected came from volunteers. I don’t know of any campaign in Arizona’s history that has generated that many volunteer signatures for a statewide initiative.”

Sproul said his only regret is that Lynn Stanley, the chair of Protect Marriage Arizona, was not present for the submission of the signatures. Stanley died in a Monday morning car accident in Northern Arizona.

“She (Stanley), more than anyone else in Arizona, is responsible for this momentous occasion,” Sproul said. “Her passing leaves large shoes to fill, but I know that Lynn would want nothing less than for voters of Arizona to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

Members of the coalition are United Families Arizona, Concerned Women for America, The National Association of Marriage Enhancement, The Center for Arizona Policy and all three Catholic Dioceses in Arizona.

Leo Gozdich, president of The National Association of Marriage Enhancement, articulated the importance of the effort to protect marriage from radical social change agents:

“The story today is the all-time record for grassroots signatures collected by people who were not getting paid. This just shows that the grassroots populace of Arizona says we need to spend time protecting marriage. Society assigns benefits to marriage. A traditional marriage is a healthy marriage. Marriage is a privilege, not a right. All social science research shows that children do better with a mother and a father. Why would we grant approval to a lifestyle that shortens a man’s life by 11 years? One of America’s 10 most wanted criminals is a polygamist.”

A total of 23,436 petitions were submitted.

Additional information on Protect Marriage Arizona.

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