Judge OKs vote on gay-marriage ban
Posted on February 24, 2006
ACLU to appeal, says legislature broke rules
By SHEILA BURKEA Davidson County judge yesterday cleared the way for voters to decide in November whether the Tennessee Constitution should be amended to ban gay marriage.
Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle dismissed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenged the way the state legislature adopted the proposed amendment.
Depending on whom you talk to, the judge’s decision championed the will of the people or subverted it.
The ACLU yesterday vowed to fight on.
“ACLU has already filed a notice of appeal, and we hope that the Tennessee Supreme Court will expedite the appeal,” Executive Director Hedy Weinberg said.
Lyle’s decision dealt with the technical aspects, as opposed to the moral.
The judge was not asked to decide the rightness or wrongness of same-sex marriage but rather whether the public was given enough time for opponents to launch a serious campaign against the proposed amendment.
Tennessee law says that a proposed amendment “shall be published six months previous” to the next election of the General Assembly. For the amendment to take effect, back-to-back General Assemblies in two years would have to pass it. The notification period allows voters to be informed about the amendment so they can vote on candidates who will serve in the next legislature.
The ACLU and gay and lesbian groups said voters weren’t given that chance as required by law. They argued that the secretary of state didn’t officially publish notice of the amendment until 4½ months before the next election.
Lawyers at the attorney general’s office and a coalition of conservative legal groups argued that the public had plenty of notice because the amendment was widely publicized by the media.
Lyle agreed. In her decision, she noted that the law didn’t specify the nature of the notification.
“Undercutting the plaintiffs’ case is that the record is clear that due to the unusual and unique facts of this case of extensive and literal media and website coverage and that the text of the proposed amendment never changed from the time it was filed in the General Assembly, the proposed amendment was actually, although not officially, published well in advance of the six-month
window required by the Constitution,” Lyle wrote, in her 35-page opinion.The judge also said in her ruling that the ACLU had not met the extraordinary criterion for a court to step in and take a proposed amendment off the ballot.
The ACLU disagreed, arguing that lawmakers were required to follow the will of the people.
“Requirements in the state Constitution represent the ultimate will of the people and our lawmakers should be held accountable to the people by properly satisfying those requirements,” ACLU of Tennessee attorney Melody Fowler-Green said in a statement.
“This is especially important when our lawmakers are proposing to amend our foundational law. It isn’t just these plaintiffs who are harmed by the General Assembly’s failure to follow the rules — the integrity of the system is shaken.”
The judge’s decision was considered a small victory for those who oppose gay marriage but only marked the beginning of a campaign to sway voters.
“Obviously, we’re pleased, but there’s a ways to go yet,” said Jerry Flowers, president of RealMarriage.org, a Brentwood-based group working to get the amendment approved by voters. Flowers noted that voters still must decide the issue.
Gay marriage is already banned in Tennessee by law, but opponents want to strengthen that ban by amending the state constitution. SOURCE
Between this and the SD State Legislature passing a ban on almost all types of abortion, the ACLU must have a whole bee hive in the bonnets. I couldn’t be happier.
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2 Responses to “Judge OKs vote on gay-marriage ban”
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Syndicate Me
Maybe what we need are 20 or 30 other states following the SD and TN leads. This would bring great good cheer to the people and in a Reagan like move out spend and overwhelm the enemy.
Please view my post regarding same sex marriage when you have the time. I love to get opinion from others.
I believe this is only the begininng. States are standing up and opposing gay marriage, abortion, and who knows what will be next.