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Loading ...Florida anti-gay amendment ratified
11.18.2008 3:23pm EST
(Tallahassee, Florida) Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning has formally ratified results of Florida’s general election, including Amendment 2, which limits marriage to opposite-sex couples and bans civil unions.
But the final figures released by Browning show that the measure passed with less than a two percent plurality.The official count was 4,890,883 to 3,008,026. That was 61.9 percent of the vote for the amendment. Florida requires that constitutional amendments must have more than 60 percent to be approved.
In addition to banning gay marriage and civil unions, the amendment also could be used to deny partner benefits to unmarried couples who live together.
The amendment says, “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”
Florida already had a law restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, but supporters of the amendment said the law could be overturned in court.
The state was one of three this month that approved constitutional bans on gay marriage. The others were California, where same-sex marriage had been legal, and Arizona.
Florida Red & Blue, which fought against the proposed amendment, filed a complaint with the Florida Elections Commission alleging that Florida4Marriage – the organization behind the measure – encouraged donors to give money to Florida Family Action Inc., a not-for-profit agency that then turned money over to Florida4Marriage.
By donating to the non-profit, donors do not have to be identified. People giving money directly to Florida4Marriage would be required to have their names filed with the commission, making the names accessible to the public.
Red & Blue called for an investigation by the commission and criminal charges.
Last year, it was discovered that the state GOP was bankrolling the amendment effort.
An investigation by the St. Petersburg Times into funding for the Florida4Marriage found that, of the $193,000 that had been raised by the group, $150,000 came from a single donor – the Florida Republican Party.
Cant wait for the law to start affecting the older heteros…thier pensions,medical decisions,etc etc….
This is a very sad thing, a very sad day for America, another sad chapter in our American Civil Rights history.
Florida (led by the jerrymandered rural rednecks in the Panhandle who dominated the Legislature for decades) has a long history of anti-gay hate.
Google “Florida Legislature +Johns Committee” …
My best friend committed suicide in that pogrom … I was seventeen years old; there WAS no gay center; there WAS no MCC; there were barely any gay BARS, and I was too young to get into those. I went to my priest; he said, “God made you a MAN, not a WOMAN.” Real helpful.
Florida may have blue areas, but it’s still mostly red and redneck in the LARGE rural areas.
Retired Orthodox Jews, who regard homosexuality with a horror surpassing the Mormons (“A Jew without a wife is no Jew at all”) also voted against us.
We should boycott Pensacola and South Beach at the very LEAST. Go to P-town instead, and get MARRIED while you’re there!
Bud Burgoon-Clark
San Diego CA USA
former Floridian
This should make Anita Bryant happy. Time to get our collective asses moving again… quite obviously, virtually every other minority group in the USA is off limits accept our own.
Please boycott the state. I have a business here but will support your not coming…if you tell the tourism board and the governor why
THAT IS JUST PLAIN MEAN.WOULD YOU WANT TO LIVE THERE? ANOTHER H8 STATE THAT WE WILL NOT WASTE OUR TIME OR MONEY ON.
i think this is a sad month for us all as califorina and florida will not allow us(gays) to be married
Disgusted in America- I have a 78 y.o. mom and obviously,she’s hetro.
She will kick anyone’s ass if she hears
anything negative said about gay people.
I know you’re angry,so am I. Don’t
lower yourself to their level. I
don’t want ANYONE to be hurt. That would
make me as bad as the bigots.
Just a thought……
We need a revolution. Protests are a good start, but in reality they will not change minds or secure our rights. Trying to convince religious nutjobs that we are equal humans is a waste of time also. We need a revolution. We need to bring REAL change, and not wait for some political tools to give them to us. We need to take what is ours.
“You are never given power. You have to take it!”
- Harvey Milk
Florida has always been backward and its proven it still is! Miami is a bush-league town and that is the most cosmopolitan city… is it fun for a weekend, sure. TO LIVE? NO WAY! this is a HICK state with backward laws and it doesnt surprise me! I will urge people to avoid spending their money here.. go to a Commonwealth island the UK is much friendlier towards gays.
GO [SCREW] YOURSELF RICK!!!!!!
A Floridian, that doesn’t want to see your bullshit on here. Let’s just not waste time on paying attention to you.
[SCREW] EM ALL!
Gay People were marched to the Gas Chambers right along side the Jews! Gay people were being Strung up in the trees long before and right along side of the BLACKS but they all want to be the discriminaters now. We long know about the WHITES, especially in the south, so this is not “Picking on” any one race this is just ironic! Its sickening. period.
I am just ready to take my college education and my tax money to another country!
I give Obama four years to show me something. It will take the Government and the Courts to protect us and “give us” our rights, if it doesn’t happen then we need to have MASS EXODUS!
I’m confused. Because of the use of “inasmuch as”, instead of any simpler terms like “due to the fact that” or “because”, I see this amendment as having actually no effect whatsoever. One common meaning of “inasmuch as” is “to the degree that”. So when marriage ceases to be only about opposite-sex couples, then the prohibition would no longer apply. All that needs to happen is to pass a law in favor of same-sex marriage, and this amendment then permits it. It seems pretty straightforward to me. So my question is, is there some legal definition of “inasmuch as” that prevents using another common definition of “inasmuch as”?
I just sold my apartment in Fort Lauderdale and moved to Boston at the beginning of October. When Amendment 2 got onto the ballot, I knew that I was finished with Florida and started seeking employment in New England. It is 21 degrees today, but my marriage from 2004 is recognized by the state and we both have benefits under my employer and it is a violation of state law to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Florida can keep its sun and its anti-gay bigotry; I brought my money and my tax dollars up here to Massachusetts.
ROB
you can still marry in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Meanwhile, OBJECT, OBJECT, OBJECT to Prop 8 if you live in California and work with Equality California for the eventual repeal of Prop 8 and vote for hopefully a real progay and Democrat governor. GOP man Gov.Schwartzeneggar has very recently shown us gays and our allies that he can not be trusted to on our side. Prop 9 has passed and he has decided to sit on his hands and BE A DO NOTHING. Not even to raise his voice to OBJECT!!!! He does not deserve another term as gov of California.
Newsom fought for gay marriage for San Francisco as its mayor in 2004 and I believe he will fight again for CA gay marriage for the whole state if elected gov should he decide to run against Pinocchio-nosed Schwartzeneggar who pledged to do all in his power showld Pro 8 pass and he decided to do nothing as stated before
(Pinocchio, the child’s fairy tale wooden puppet whose nose gets longer and longer with every lie he tells)
an Radical Realist, want change? we need to elect, elect and elect quality and qualified openly gay men and women working hard for gay and straight alike for public office into every last town, oucnty and state of this land, We need to pepper our state and national legislatures with openly gay senators and house reps who are very impatient with antigay laws and who are hungry to work for their repeal if need be. We need thousands of proud to be gay officials especially where gay officials are thin to nonexistent.
Look at Congress we have only 3 openly gay people there Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin and now Jared Polis. Why aren’t more than 3? Sure arch-enemy Marilyn Muskrat is gone, Ted Stevens may in the end not have votes from Alaska when they are al counted to support his victory, and if he is in, Congress may bring its own ethics violations charges against him, more and more of out enemies in Congress are falling by the wayside over the years BUT ONLY 3 OPENLY GAY CONGRESSPEOPLE, we need 10 minimum in case any are defeated and preferably more than that committed to both serving all Americans and committed to getting every last antigay federal law off the books to cteate immigration equality to unite binational gay families, to eventually trash the federal Defence of Marriage Act that refuses federal recognition of both American and foreign gay marriages that are legal in all of Canada, Spain, South Africa, Belgium, Netherlands and next year in Norway.
Get rid of the inequality at the US customs booths posted in Canadian airports inside Canadian territory and in the US customs booths on the actual US-Canadian border.
Married gays are teated as family entering into Canada, but treated as legal strangers to each other entering into the US from Canada.
This is why we need to pepper espially Congress with openly gay legislators.
Especially because the antigay federal level can trump the progay local level in several areas.