Burnt Orange Report - Current Coalition to Defeat Texas Same-Sex Marriage Amendment
"This isn't an amendment for the homosexuals to fight; it's one for all reasonable people to fight (progressive to conservative) if they believe that making Civil Marriage in Texas double secret illegal is hardly necessary to the function of the state."
click on the link for a list of folks and orgs working to defeat this...
and then pick an org or two, contact 'em, and see what you can do to help...
Thursday, July 14, 2005
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I'm working with Houston GLBT Community Center (the umbrella organization with which Houston Equal Rights Alliance is affiliated) this Saturday morning. We're going on a block walk of the Montrose area, knocking on doors and asking people to vote 'no' when the amendment comes up on the ballot this fall. We'll only be outside in the heat for an hour and a half at most, and HERA is providing breakfast and lunch for everybody.
If you can make it, we're meeting on July 16 (this Saturday morning) at 8:30 a.m. at the GLBT Community Center at 3400 Montrose. It's on the second floor and to the left when you exit the elevator.
This isn't just an issue for homosexuals. There can be real, awful unintended consequences to referndums like this (aside from, you know, the stated, plain awful consequences). There's this case in Ohio right now where an abusive boyfriend got his felony knocked down to a misdemeanor because, since Ohio passed a constitutional amendment banning all marriage related benefits for non-married people, domestic violence laws didn't apply to him. More broadly, any time we start circumscribing the rights of any particular minority, it makes it a lot easier to go after other minorities. So I don't need to tell everyone how important this is.
I hope you can make it out.
P.S. On an inside baseball track, I think the interesting question of this week is how the eminent domain constitutional amendment that's come up in response to the Kelo decision will affect turn-out this fall.
Apropos of my leariness about restricting eminent domain powers without any thought to unintended consequences of those restrictions and my general distaste for referendums, my hope is that a general Texas-libertarian-get-the government-off-our-backs mood will sweep the state and the no vote will have a good showing this fall.
My fear is that church-goers will be worried that the government will take their churches and show up in droves, voting 'yes' on banning same-sex marriage. I'm looking forward to the first set of polls on the election when they come out for sure.
I realized on the train ride home that I meant to write "temporarily setting aside" when I wrote "apropos." So I stand (self) corrected.
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