11 States Back Bans on Gay Unions; Georgia, Ohio Bar Partner Benefits

Voters in 11 states on Tuesday gave resounding approval to constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage -- and in some cases, barring all cohabitating couples from receiving domestic partnership benefits.

The only state that registered significant opposition to the ban was Oregon. But even there, a constitutional amendment prevailed.

A dominant majority of voters in Georgia and Ohio said yes to bills that not only defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but denied benefits to all domestic partners. In Ohio -- where the amendment was opposed by the Republican governor as well as the two U.S. senators -- domestic partners receiving benefits from some state agencies could immediately lose them.

Amendments banning same-sex marriage also appeared on ballots in Arkansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Utah.

Some advocates of the same-sex marriage bans hailed Tuesday’s votes as evidence of support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would prevent gays and lesbians from marrying.

“This is further evidence that the American people do not want marriage to be redefined,” said Gary Bauer, head of the advocacy group American Values in Arlington, Va.

With all the same-sex marriage bans winning approval, Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said: “Marriage equality is taking it on the chin tonight, but it’s not a knockout. This is only Round 1.”

None of the states that voted on the ban currently permits same-sex marriage, although officials in Portland, Ore., granted marriage licenses to more than 3,000 same-sex couples this year before a court stopped the practice.

Earlier in the year, amendments banning same-sex marriage won the approval of more than 70% of voters in Missouri and Louisiana.

The Louisiana amendment was subsequently struck down in state court on the grounds that it improperly dealt with two subjects: banning same-sex marriage while barring legal recognition of common-law relationships, domestic partnerships and civil unions.

Proponents of same-sex marriage in Georgia immediately vowed to contest Tuesday’s vote there on similar grounds.

“Once the votes have been certified, we will challenge, absolutely,” said Rep. Karla Drenner, a Democratic state legislator who led the opposition to Georgia’s amendment.

Drenner said the same-sex marriage debate had “fueled a conservative voting base here, and more or less turned into a national get-out-the-vote effort for conservative groups.”

But Sadie Fields, the leader of Georgia’s Christian Coalition, said: “The voice of reason has prevailed in Georgia. Marriage is too precious an institution to allow the social liberals to experiment with it.”

The Christian Coalition of Ohio’s executive director, Chris Long, attributed his state’s rejection of same-sex marriage to “the groundswell of support from churches all across Ohio.” Long said 550,000 signatures in support of the measure were collected by “churches and pastors throughout the state.”

The opposition, he said, was “fueled by what people saw in Massachusetts,” which in May became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage following a ruling by that state’s highest court.

Moreover, Long said, the strong turnout Tuesday was “a mandate for Congress to understand that there is a movement out there in America” for a similar amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, said the state marriage measures were used “in a sensational way during an election year as a divisive issue.”

Still, she said, “obviously this is a huge disappointment, that voters in these states would vote to enshrine discrimination in their state constitutions.”