Wisconsin's "gay marriage" amendment and the problem with the vote
By now, everyone knows the so-called “gay marriage” amendment was approved by voters in yesterday’s election. I refer to it as “so-called” because anyone who actually read the referendum question and understood what it meant knew it was not really about banning gay marriage.
If it had only been about banning gay marriage, it was a completely unnecessary piece of legislation because the state Constitution already bans gay marriages. This amendment to the Constitution went much deeper than that. It bans civil unions for anyone and creates legislation that denies all unmarried couples – heterosexual or homosexual – the ability to enjoy certain benefits automatically afforded their married counterparts. In essence, it defines what a family is, according to the amendment’s supporters’ own standards.
I believe everyone has a right to their own opinion and to vote as they believe right. But as much as I believe that and as deeply as I love Wisconsin, I am ashamed of the way so many people voted; I am embarrassed to live in a state where voters would so blatantly choose to discriminate against an entire sect of people; and I am saddened by the fact that so many people do not take the time to fully understand issues they are voting on. At the same time I am frustrated by the fact that certain parties chose to distort the facts about the amendment and what it would and would not do in order to get the legislation passed. They used religion as the basis for their argument, but at the same time slanted the truth.
As I said, this amendment, as approved, allows discrimination against an entire segment of the state’s population – people, by the way, who are probably paying more in taxes than many married couples because there is no marriage tax credit available to them – to be written into the state’s Constitution. The even sadder thing about this is constitutions are supposed to be documents which, by their very nature, provide for rights, freedoms and equal protections for all, not take them away or restrict them. While some people may have just not understood the referendum question, it speaks volumes about those other voters who are so threatened by those different from themselves that they feel they must outlaw them from having equal rights and protections.
There is also the separation of church and state issue. Far too many people during this campaign insisted on citing the Bible and making other religious references. Religion should never have been a part of it and those who used their religious beliefs as a basis for their affirmative vote don’t understand one of the basic premises of the U.S. Constitution.
All that aside, I predict this legislation will eventually be overturned, but before that I suspect someone – whether a few individuals or an entire class of people – will challenge it. Such challenges have been mounted elsewhere - some successfully so - and I think it is only a matter of time before we see it in Wisconsin. In the meantime, we can only hope that someday voters are more enlightened about issues before they go to the polls.
If it had only been about banning gay marriage, it was a completely unnecessary piece of legislation because the state Constitution already bans gay marriages. This amendment to the Constitution went much deeper than that. It bans civil unions for anyone and creates legislation that denies all unmarried couples – heterosexual or homosexual – the ability to enjoy certain benefits automatically afforded their married counterparts. In essence, it defines what a family is, according to the amendment’s supporters’ own standards.
I believe everyone has a right to their own opinion and to vote as they believe right. But as much as I believe that and as deeply as I love Wisconsin, I am ashamed of the way so many people voted; I am embarrassed to live in a state where voters would so blatantly choose to discriminate against an entire sect of people; and I am saddened by the fact that so many people do not take the time to fully understand issues they are voting on. At the same time I am frustrated by the fact that certain parties chose to distort the facts about the amendment and what it would and would not do in order to get the legislation passed. They used religion as the basis for their argument, but at the same time slanted the truth.
As I said, this amendment, as approved, allows discrimination against an entire segment of the state’s population – people, by the way, who are probably paying more in taxes than many married couples because there is no marriage tax credit available to them – to be written into the state’s Constitution. The even sadder thing about this is constitutions are supposed to be documents which, by their very nature, provide for rights, freedoms and equal protections for all, not take them away or restrict them. While some people may have just not understood the referendum question, it speaks volumes about those other voters who are so threatened by those different from themselves that they feel they must outlaw them from having equal rights and protections.
There is also the separation of church and state issue. Far too many people during this campaign insisted on citing the Bible and making other religious references. Religion should never have been a part of it and those who used their religious beliefs as a basis for their affirmative vote don’t understand one of the basic premises of the U.S. Constitution.
All that aside, I predict this legislation will eventually be overturned, but before that I suspect someone – whether a few individuals or an entire class of people – will challenge it. Such challenges have been mounted elsewhere - some successfully so - and I think it is only a matter of time before we see it in Wisconsin. In the meantime, we can only hope that someday voters are more enlightened about issues before they go to the polls.
posted by Cheryl Hentz at 3:01 PM
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