Karl Rove figured out how Bush could win in November

[spooked]

Put the Gay Marriage Ban on November Ballots in the states!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=BRF%20Gay%20Marriage%20Montana

Mont. voters to decide on gay marriage

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HELENA, Mont. -- A proposal to amend the Montana Constitution to ban gay marriage will appear on the fall ballot after supporters collected more than 46,000 signatures, officials announced Thursday.

To qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot, the measure needed a minimum of 41,020 signatures, the secretary of state's office said.

State law already prohibits same-sex marriages, but the initiative would make the ban more difficult to overturn by embedding it in the constitution.

Republican state Rep. Jeff Laszloffy proposed the amendment as president of the Montana Family Foundation.

[olddem43]

1. When did Montana become a swing state?

[spooked]

4. Well, I guess that must have been an article about SWINGERS in Montana

lol

[spooked]

2. They're going for it in Ohio too

http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2043509&nav=LQlCOovv

Ohioans Could Vote on Gay Marriage Ban

Movement To Ban Gay Marriage In Ohio


Ohio already bans gay marriage in this state with it's own Defense of Marriage Act, but state advocates want to amend the state constitution.

Proponents of an amendment to Ohio's Constitution need 323,000 petition signatures by August 4 to get a referendum on the November ballot. If they succeed, Ohio voters could decide to amend the state constitution on election day to ban gay marriage.

Phil Burress of the Citizens for Community values is fighting for the constitutional amendment both on the national level and here in Ohio.

[2Design]

3. exactly.....putting on all state ballots to enforce discrimination

[LostInAnomie]

5. This is not good news

The fundies are a lot more worked up about fighting gay marriage than the other side is for fighting for it.

[spooked]

6. Add Missouri to the list!

http://www.news-leader.com/today/0715-Missourise-134101.html

Missouri voters will decide Aug. 3 whether to approve a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. It is the first statewide vote on the issue anywhere in the country since the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in February that state officials there can issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That ruling, which took effect in May, ignited a national debate on gay marriage.

Foes of gay marriage believe a state constitutional amendment is harder to challenge in the courts than a state law. Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska and Nevada already have amended their constitutions to restrict gay marriage.

Six other states, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi, have placed similar constitutional amendments on November's ballot.

[spooked]

7. Notice a trend here? They want to get all of their

homophobic friends to flock to the voting booths on November 2nd, and vote for GW while they're at it!

[spooked]

8. 4 million Conservative Christians did not vote in 2000!

They're trying to get the Gay Marriage Ban on the Michigan ballot as well.

Karl Rove thinks this issue will decide the election.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-07-11-cover-gay-marriage-election_x.htm

"Ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage are widely expected to attract some of the estimated 4 million conservative Christians who did not vote in the 2000 election — a top priority of Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove. Activists involved in the drive to put same-sex marriage on the ballot say Bush will be a beneficiary. "I believe that the issue could decide the election for him here," says Gary Glenn, a leader of the drive to ban same-sex unions in Michigan."

[DeepModem Mom]

9. kick

[AirAmFan]

10. But *'He's a Uniter, Not a Divider"!

[Pepperbelly]

11. Arkansas as well and this could be bad for Kerry.

It will bring the fundamentalists out plus, here in Arkansas, some of the African-American pastors are supporting Bsuh over Kerry because of this.

Shit.

:grr:

That is EXACTLY how wedge issues are supposed to work.

[Disturbed]

12. REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America


WHEN in the Course of human Events,
it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

[spooked]

13. Oregon willl also but this on the November ballot!

Oregon Marriage Amendment Receives Record Number of Signatures.
7/2/2004

http://www.montanafamily.org/start.asp?file=newsarticle&id=78

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Opponents of same-sex marriage submitted a record-high number of signatures Wednesday to place a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay nuptials on the ballot.

The 244,587 signatures amassed by the Defense of Marriage Coalition — more than twice the necessary amount — was the highest number of signatures ever submitted for an initiative measure in Oregon's history...

A gay marriage measure could affect other political races — especially the presidential contest in this battleground state.

Oregon Republican Party Chairman Kevin Mannix has said he believes THE HOT-BUTON SOCIAL ISSUE WILL BRING OUT CONSERVATIVE VOTERS, which could boost President Bush's chances of defeating presumed Democratic candidate John Kerry in Oregon.

[spooked]

14. "This will activate the Bush supporters"

http://www.theeveningtimes.com/articles/2004/07/15/news/news5.txt

By MELISSA NELSON
Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Political watchers say a proposed amendment to the Arkansas constitution that would ban gay marriage could prove troublesome for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

The proposed Amendment Concerning Marriage and Civil Union, defining marriage as between a man and a woman, could sway the election in favor of Republicans in the Bible Belt swing state, said Art English, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

"My sense tells me this will activate the Bush supporters," he said. "We are generally a conservative, family oriented, religious state."

[West Coast Democrat]

15. Why will gay marriage bills necessarily bring extra people to the ballot?

It sounds like a theory...but how do we know it's really that important of an issue to voters in these states? I mean, the Oregon ballot initiative will probably be overturned by the State Supreme Court even if it were to pass. I'm not so sure that it will even be a huge pull.

[maggrwaggr]

16. it's all about getting Bush's disillusioned "base" to the polls

right now a lot of them are gonna stay home

[West Coast Democrat]

17. I just don't see the issue being popular enough in swing states

maybe it will get a few of Bush's base voters to be re-engaged, but only if it had the sort of local media push that included billboards and commercials, etc.