Voters keep choosing to protect traditional marriage

Voters keep choosing to protect traditional marriage
New definitions added in 7 states, 1 vote total incomplete

Voters in Virginia – and six other states – have "settled" the issue of same-sex unions in their state by approving a constitutional definition that restricts marriage to the union of one man and one woman.

"We knew all along that a majority favored the amendment. It was just a matter of getting people to the polls," Victoria Cobb, whose Virginia organization called Family Foundation supported the proposal, said after yesterday's vote.

"Tonight, this issue has been settled," she said. Voters in Idaho, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Colorado, South Dakota and South Carolina also voted to approve such amendments.

The results from Arizona were incomplete, but showed the measure trailing by a few percentage points. If that becomes an official loss, it would be the only time in 28 attempts that a marriage protection constitutional amendment has not been endorsed by voters.

The vote to ban "gay" marriage in South Carolina came on a nearly 4-1 division, and supporters say such constitutional amendments are not nearly as likely to be overturned by activist and liberal judges as state laws, which already had been used in several states to provide some level of protection for traditional marriage.

In Colorado, voters went one step further, defeating a separate proposal that would have created "equal" benefits for same-sex couples, which promoters claimed would just provide "basic legal" protections.

The protection for traditional marriage, before this election, had been approved by voters in 20 out of the 20 states where it had been proposed.

"The best that they (traditional marriage opponents) can do is confuse the issue," States Issues Analyst Mona Passignano, of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family Action, told WND as the campaigns for the marriage protections gained speed in recent weeks.

"What they're running up against is that people just want traditional marriage protected," she said.

During 2005, Texas and Kansas voters approved marriage protection amendments, and in the sweep of the 2004 vote, 13 states took the same action, including voters in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Utah, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon who did so on the same night. Missouri and Nevada also voted for the plan. Five other states had done so in earlier elections and another two dozen states have taken the same action, but by statute, not constitutional amendment.

Wisconsin's victory was especially gratifying for campaign workers in that state. There state lawmakers went through the process a second time after first passing a Defense of Marriage law in 2003, only to see Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle veto it. The second time around, for this year's election, they pursued the constitutional amendment process, which does not require a governor's signature.