Marriage ban heads to Arizona ballot

The Arizona supreme court on Thursday ruled that an anti-same-sex marriage amendment to the state constitution can appear on the November 7 ballot, while a recently released poll of Arizona voters indicates the harsh measure will fail.

The justices, upholding a lower court decision, spurned Arizona Together's arguments that the marriage measure violates the state's single-subject rule for ballot initiatives.

Arizona Together and five straight couples, most of them elderly, had sued to keep the measure off the ballot. A key talking point of the gay-friendly group is that the amendment aims to forbid any domestic partnership or granting of marriage-like rights. Several localities, including Phoenix, Tucson, Tempe, and Pima County, grant domestic-partner benefits; some offer domestic partnerships popular among older people seeking to keep health benefits that would be jeopardized by remarriage.

Meanwhile, a poll of Arizona registered voters released Tuesday by KAET/Channel 8 in Tempe indicated that the ban would fail. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they opposed the constitutional marriage ban, while 38% supported it.

The poll of 846 registered voters was conducted by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Arizonans consistently oppose antigay measures that would deprive people of benefits, according to the journalism school's polling on the issue. In January 2005, 54% of registered voters said they would support an amendment to the Arizona constitution specifying that marriage would be allowed only between one man and one woman. But only 33% would support a same-sex marriage ban if it also prohibited domestic partners from receiving public-health or retirement benefits, KAET's Web site shows.

The measure has been endorsed by all three of the state's Catholic bishops as well as U.S. senator John McCain of Arizona, who defended his stance in August 2005 by saying that the measure "would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage." (The Advocate)

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