BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

On November 2, 2004 (actually, a few days earlier; I voted, in Atlanta, Georgia, under Georgia's "advance voting" scheme under which I was permitted to vote, by Diebold machine, with no paper trail, a few days early), I cast my votes for President, Congress and various other positions.

Three ballot propositions were "on tap," so to speak, that year, as I recall. The first proposition, roughly worded, stated, "The Constitution of this state shall be amended such that, and to reflect that, marriage in this state shall consist solely of the union of a man and a woman." This was, of course, Georgia's anti-gay marriage amendment. This amendment "passed," by 76% - 76% of voters who voted with respect to this proposition voted "yes" - i.e. said, "Yes, the Constitution shall be amended." Only 24% said, "No, it shall not. Things are fine now the way they are. Georgia already contains a law prohibiting same-sex marriages. It is not required, under the "public policy" exception to the full faith and credit clause, to recognize the marriage of another state. There's no chance in hell our legislature will ever propose a gay marriage bill. Our Supreme Court is not "activist." There's no chance in hell that the United States Supreme Court will ever say there's a fundamental right to gay marriage either." (Actually, only SOME of the 24% reasoned this way - the "just leave me the fuck alone" way, regardless of what I think about gay marriage. Some of the 24% may not have been so precise in their reasoning - they may have simply not wanted discrimination amended into the Georgia Constitution).

A third - and the most discerning - block of voters - voted "no" for yet a different reason - and it is for this reason that the following news has resulted:


Ga. to appeal gay marraige ban ruling
Updated 5/17/2006 2:06 PM ET



ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia will appeal a judge's ruling that struck down its voter-approved ban on gay marriage, and the governor said Wednesday he will call a special legislative session if the state Supreme Court doesn't rule on the issue soon.

"I think the people spoke overwhelmingly. I think the people of Georgia knew exactly what they were voting for," Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue said.

The constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage was approved by 76% of the state's voters in November 2004. On Tuesday, however, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell ruled the measure violated the Georgia Constitution's single-subject rules for ballot questions.

The ballot measure addressed issues other than gay marriage, including civil unions and the power of Georgia courts to rule on disputes arising from same-sex relationships.

Perdue said he would call a special session of the Legislature to propose another constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage if the high court did not rule by Aug. 7. The deadline for the measure to be printed on ballots for the November general election would be Aug. 14, he said.

A special session could cost taxpayers between $30,000 and $40,000 a day and could last at least a week.
State Attorney General Thurbert Baker said Russell's opinion was "wrongfully decided" and he would ask for an expedited ruling in the state's appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.

He also pointed out that a Georgia law prohibiting same-sex marriage is still on the books, and that only the constitutional amendment was struck down.

The plaintiffs, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda, believe the judge's ruling will be upheld.
"All these guys are running for election. And once again they're going to try to use gays and lesbians as their platform," said Chuck Bowen, director of Georgia Equality, the state's largest gay-advocacy organization. "They're using us to shield the real issues facing the state."

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When I voted in 2004, I was given a ballot containing the proposition as I described it. I was also given a piece of paper describing, for redundancy's sake, what the Georgia Constitution would look like if the proposed amendment became law. What neither I nor anyone else was given was ANY INFORMATION WHATSOEVER telling us the full scope of what we were voting for with respect to this proposition.

Fortunately, I would like to think of myself as an informed voter. Several weeks before I voted, I looked on Georgia's official website, state.ga.us, to find out as much as I could about Proposition #1. I found no more information than I was given on voting day. However, I did not end my search there. I typed the phrase "Georgia same-sex marriage amendment" into the Google toolbar, and was taken to a site - I believe the site was a conservative website - that told me EXACTLY what the proposition entailed: not only did the proposition propose to amend the Constitution; it also proposed to strip civil unions from having legal status and to deprive same-sex couples who had previously been granted certain marriage-type benefits under state law from continuing to receive those benefits. I then searched every state or state-connected website I could find, and found none of this additional information.

So, when it came time to vote, I voted "No" to proposition 1, for one simple reason - not because I believe, or do not believe, that a state has the right to preclude individuals of the same sex from getting married; not because I believe, or don't believe, that a state has the right to deny civil unionship, and so on, but because the state was deliberately concealing the guts of the proposed amendment (which involved not only amendment to the Constitution but changes to other existing laws) - it was tring to gut several laws by getting something less palatable passed by WORDING it in a more palatable form. A state should not be rewarded for this deception. Additionally, I LITERALLY had to vote "no." I knew that I was not voting on just the issue of "one man-one woman"; I was voting on other issues as well. Regardless of what I thought about the proposal as written, the other issues - i.e. whether civil unions should remain legal - were issues with respect to which I saw no need for any laws to change - and since one either had to vote "yes," or "no" on the proposition as a whole, I voted "no."

Finally, since I was then, and am now, familiar with Georgia's single-subject rule for ballot questions, I voted "no" because to have voted "yes" would have been to have voted "yes" for an illegally proposed amendment that would have been illegal if it became law.

Govnuh Sonny Perdue, as dumb a good ol' boy as you'll ever meet, said "Voters knew exactly what they were voting for." I'm not sure he knows what he means. Voters believed they were voting to prohibit same-sex marriage. The day I voted, I conducted an admittedly unscientific poll, asking at least 25 voters if they believed anything else besides the same-sex marriage prohibition was on amendment #1. Not one person said that there was - gay, straight, attorney, non-attorney, informed citizen, or not. A few days after the election, SURPRISE - I read several polls that indicated the overwhelming majority of Georgians had no idea that they were voting for anything other than a same-sex marriage amendment, and had they known that they were voting for something else, they would have preferred that the "something else" had been the subject of different propositions.

So, here's to YOU, freedom-loving, liberty-protecting Georgia lawmakers: if YOU have nothing to hide, why not just share EVERYTHING with us?

No matter how this issue is resolved, I am delighted that the state will now have to pay money - yes, even my miniscule amount of taxpayer funds - as punishment for its bigotry.