Gay marriage amendment will impact state elections
By By Sid Salter / syndicated columnist
September 22, 2004
My old friend Justin Wilson the late, great Cajun cook and master Southern storyteller always wore a belt AND suspenders.
When Paul Ott Carruth would arrange our infrequent encounters, I'd always ask Justin about the belt and the suspenders just to hear his reliable reply: "Yeh, I got dem both. Hoo boy, I gah-ron-tee, I ain't takin' no chances!"
From a political standpoint, the Legislature adopted a similar posture last spring in putting a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ban same-sex marriage in this state a status that's already been illegal by statute in Mississippi since 1997.
If the partisan battle for the White House between incumbent President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry or the state's congressional elections and judicial elections aren't enough to stir voter interest in the Nov. 2 general election, the gay marriage ban amendment is guaranteed to stir interest among supporters and opponents alike.
Amendment's language
On the ballot, Mississippians will by "yes" or "no" vote decide the fate of Constitutional Amendment No. 1, which was authorized by House Concurrent Resolution 56 during the 2004 session of the Legislature and reads as follows:
A "yes" vote would approve a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages in Mississippi and deny legal recognition of such marriages performed in other states or countries by the state of Mississippi. A "no" vote would disapprove the amendment.
Currently, there is no constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Mississippi but such unions have specifically been illegal by statute since the state in 1997 adopted statutes modeled after the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
Passed by Congress in 1996, DOMA bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages and allows states to ignore gay marriages performed elsewhere. Four states (Maryland, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming) have laws or court rulings prohibiting same-sex marriage that predate the federal DOMA.
Eleven states have responded to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision allowing same-sex marriage by proposing to alter their constitutions or statutes to require that marriage partners be one man and one woman.
Vote pending in 11 states
Missouri voters approved such a measure on the August primary ballot by a 71 percent majority. Louisiana followed suit on Sept. 18 with almost 80 percent of state voters approving the same-sex marriage ban.
As in the rest of the country, same-sex marriage ban amendment proponents in Mississippi say the 1997 DOMA statutes could be overturned in a future court challenge unless voters express their will through passing the ban amendment.
Opponents say the amendment is overkill and denies a basic right to same-sex couples particularly in states that won't recognize legal civil unions.
But conservative Mississippi voters will pass the same-sex marriage ban amendment by numbers similar to Louisiana's 4-1 margin. Count on it. The real beneficiaries of the amendment will be conservative politicians on the Nov. 2 ballot who will see their numbers significantly bolstered.
Just like old Justin, no one politicians, gay rights activists, the sincere or the cynical is taking any chances.
Sid Salter is Perspective editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. Contact him at (601) 961-7084 or
e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com.
