NEWS & ANALYSIS

As Expected, Protect Marriage Arizona Sued by Extremists

By Dennis Durband, Editor
July 12, 2006

Today Arizona Together, a coalition of liberal and homosexual activist groups, filed suit in Maricopa County Superior Court against the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment. The group seeks to have a judge overturn the will of more than 307,000 registered voters who want to vote on PMA in the November election.

Cathi Herrod, interim president of the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), a coalition member organization, said the Protect Marriage Arizona legal defenders are ready for the expected challenge. Polling shows PMA winning on Election Day, if the proposed state constitutional amendment survives homosexual activist lawsuits.

“Our legal team, including CAP General Counsel Peter Gentala and our friends at the Alliance Defense Fund, is fully prepared for this court battle,” Herrod said.

Five couples seeking continued domestic partner benefits filed a lawsuit today at Maricopa County Superior Court against Protect Marriage Arizona. Three elderly couples from Tucson and two City of Phoenix employees and their partners are plaintiffs in the suit filed by attorneys Chuck Blanchard and Lisa Hauser. Hauser has served as attorney for the Maricopa County Republican Party.

Arizona Together’s lawsuit claims that PMA violates the Separate Amendment Rule by “seeking to incorporate in one ballot measure at least three separate issues.”

One of the plaintiffs fronting the suit for Arizona Together is Al Brezney, 79, who is in a cohabiting relationship. Two Tucson couples joining the suit are registered in the Tucson Domestic Partnership Registry. The domestic partnership registry brings government into bedrooms in order for non-married couples to gain health benefits.

Arizona Together is headed by State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a bisexual instructor at Arizona State University, and by former state legislator Steve May, a homosexual who was discharged from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1999. May lost a re-election bid in 2002 while serving as an election observer in Macedonia with former Tempe mayor Neil Giuliano, also homosexual.

In a recent news release, Arizona Together claimed that individuals donating money to Protect Marriage Arizona for signature gathering did not know what their money was being used for. Arizona Together claims 1,000 supporters; Protect Marriage Arizona gathered 307,576 signatures to qualify for the state ballot. Of that total, 200,000 signatures were gathered by volunteers – a state record.

Arizona Together has raised more than $500,000, with a total goal of raising $2.7 million, in an effort to defeat the PMA initiative. Homosexuals average approximately twice the national average in personal income, and most of the state marriage defense committees have been vastly outspent by homosexual extremists. However, in 19 states where marriage initiatives have been contested since 2004, the average support for heterosexual marriage has been 71 percent in favor.