NEWS & ANALYSIS

Liberals Behaving Badly: Sen. Allen Resigns Leadership Position Over Opposition to Marriage; Mead Breaks Campaign Promise

By Dennis Durband
May 27, 2004

An activist for Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, State Senator Carolyn Allen (RINO-Scottsdale) led a revolt against traditional marriage and threw a snit Wednesday in the State Senate. Allen also quit her post as Senate president pro-tempore because Senate President Ken Bennett called for a vote on sending a postcard to Congress in support of a federal marriage amendment.

Why Allen, a renegade liberal Republican who has consistently bucked GOP legislators and party principle, had ever been given a position of leadership in the first place is mystifying. Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) will never be forced to tow the party line if they are coddled, mollified and given positions of leadership.

Allen voted against the postcard to Congress supporting marriage as between one man and one woman. Her allegiance is to Planned Parenthood, which supports radical homosexual activist rights. The senate voted 14-12 in favor of the postcard resolution -- falling two votes short of a minority. Four senators cowardly refused to vote.

The unwillingness of the Senate to support traditional marriage puts it far outside the mainstream of American and Arizona sentiment on the issue.

Nationally, 67 percent of Americans favor a federal marriage amendment. The Arizona House of Representatives previously voted 41-19 in support of the postcard.

Allen, said to be tight with homosexual activists, derided Senate President Bennett for "selling out" to the Center for Arizona Policy by bringing the marriage resolution up for a vote. The Center for Arizona Policy drew 8,000 people to a marriage rally last week in Phoenix and supported HCM 2004, the marriage postcard resolution.

Len Munsil, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, said, "Rarely in Arizona history has a body of elected officials been so openly defiant of the will of the people.  Polls taken last week indicate that Americans by a 67-30 margin favor amending the Constitution to preserve marriage. More than two-thirds of the House voted for this memorial. Yet senators scurried like rats to avoid even having to vote on this issue."

Democrats Linda Aguirre and Marsha Arzberger and RINOs Linda Binder and Slade Mead avoided their elective responsibility to vote on the bill. During this year's election cycle, voters may do well to ask candidates if they plan to vote on all the bills before the legislature.

Allen has suffered a series of personal defeats this year. At the state GOP convention in January, she was the only person to speak up against a resolution in support of the Protect Arizona Now petition, which then won in a landslide. The self-centered Allen then claimed that the informed consent bill had come up for a Senate vote expressly for the purpose of making her look bad to her party's base. However, most bills that are debated on the Senate floor do come up for a vote. She angrily said Wednesday she didn't want to have to go on record with the voters, but then went out of her way to speak against the resolution. Allen also supported Mike Hellon, who lost his bid for re-election as Arizona's National Republican Committeeman.

Allen is one of two liberal Republican state senators being targeted for voter-induced retirement in this year's elections. Conservative Robert Ditchey is running against her for the District 8 Senate seat this year.

Allen is also one of the big spenders in the legislature. She annually ranks near the bottom of the "Friend of the Taxpayer" rankings. In the previous legislative session, as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives, she underwent surgery and missed 41 percent of the House votes, but she refused to resign or represent her district. However, she did manage to show up and vote in favor on a budget bill that greatly expanded the size of state government during a time of revenue shortages.

In another case of RINOs behaving badly, Sen. Mead violated a campaign promise. When he ran for the Senate in 2002, one of his main criticisms of incumbent and primary opponent Lori Daniels was that she had missed some votes on key issues. On Wednesday, Mead voted on the bills that were read just before and just after the marriage vote, but went AWOL when the marriage vote was taken. The record will reveal, nevertheless, that he did not support the preservation of marriage in Arizona. Conservatives Rep. John Huppenthal and Anton Orlich are running against Mead this year.

Another RINO, Sen. Toni Hellon, had promised to vote in favor of the marriage postcard. Damaging her credibility, she went back on her word and voted against it. Hellon said the marriage postcard was supported by the same right-wing conservatives who recently voted her ex-husband, Mike Hellon, out of office as the Arizona GOP Republican national committeeman. For a woman opposed to traditional marriage, Hellon suddenly seems attached to her former husband.

One of the 11 liberal Democrats voting against the resolution Wednesday was Sen. Bill Brotherton. He said those favoring traditional marriage are “Bible-thumping bigots” and compared them to Southern racists. Bishop Henry Barnwell, the African American pastor of First New Life Missionary Baptist Church of Phoenix, disagrees with that kind of liberal, knee-jerk approach to the marriage issue.

During last week's marriage rally, Barnwell said, “The defense of marriage is not about discrimination. As an African American, I know something about discrimination. I find it offensive to call it that. In fact, that is ridiculous. It boggles my mind that people would compare marriage to slavery.”

Barnwell also lent his support for the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment.

“I am here today to state my support for the institute of marriage,” Barnwell said. “Many of the largest African American denominations have come out in support of the Federal Marriage Amendment. We did not come to this conclusion lightly. We didn’t ask for a national debate on whether the institute of marriage be violated by a judge. Without marriage, it is hard to see how the community will survive. Children do best when raised by a mother and a father. It is not just about adults’ love. Marriage is about the future of children and society. Radicals want to write our values out of the constitution. Please, please, please, don’t take us out of the constitution.”

Brotherton may need to do some relational maintenance with a colleague on his side of the aisle. Sen. Jack Brown, the Democratic Senate leader, voted for the marriage resolution. And if Brotherton will review history, he'll learn that Southern racists were Democrats who voted against the 13th and 14th Amendments banning slavery and against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was Brotherton's party that formed an organization of some notoriety -- the Ku Klux Klan.

The Senate sponsors of the postcard were Mark Anderson, Tim Bee, Robert Blendu, Marilyn Jarrett, Dean Martin, Jim Weiers, Bob Burns, Jack Harper and Thayer Verschoor.

Here is what the postcard says:

"To the Congress of the United States of America:

Your memorialist respectfully represents:

Whereas, the union of man and woman in marriage has been recognized as the foundation of society since the beginning of time; and

Whereas, the benefits of marriage between one man and one woman are substantial and undeniable, both for the individuals involved and any children resulting from the union; and

Whereas, the founders of our country decreed marriage between a man and a woman to be "the highest and most blessed of relationships"; and

Whereas, nearly three-fourths of the states already have enacted laws to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman, and the federal government enacted the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996; and

Whereas, the people of the State of Arizona view with growing concern attempts to change the historical definition of marriage through judicial action, including, most recently, rulings by the courts in Canada and the State of Massachusetts; and

Whereas, in addition to simply stating that marriage in the United States consists of the union of a male and a female, the Federal Marriage Amendment to the constitution ensures the democratic process by allowing the state to retain existing authority to legislate in the area of marital benefits, including privileges associated with marriage.

Wherefore your memorialist, the Senate of the State of Arizona, the House of Representatives concurring, prays:

1. That, pursuant to article V of the Constitution of the United States, the Congress of the United States propose an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to be ratified by the legislatures or by conventions in three-fourths of the several states, as follows:

AMENDMENT

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.

Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred on unmarried couples or groups.

2. That the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona transmit a copy of this Memorial to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and each Member of Congress from the State of Arizona."

The Senate vote on HCM 2004

Yea (14): Republicans--Robert Blendu, Robert Burns, Jack Harper, Barbara Leff, Jim Weier, Jim Waring, Tim Bee, Dean Martin, Jay Tibshraeny, Mark Anderson, Thayer Verschoor, Ken Bennett, Marilyn Jarrett; Democrat--Jack Brown

Nay (12): Republicans--Carolyn Allen, Toni Hellon; Democrats--Jorge Garcia, Victor Soltero, Richard Miranda, Pete Rios, Albert Hale, Ken Cheuvront, Harry Mitchell, Gabrielle Giffords, Robert Cannell, Bill Brotherton

Refused to vote: Slade Mead, Linda Binder, Linda Aguirre, Marsha Arzberger