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January 30, 2008

Florida Coalition Combats Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Drive

Florida Coalition Combats Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Drive

The Fairness for All Families Coalition is engaging in a “primary day of action” Tuesday as the Florida primary proceeds, with over 500 volunteers blanketing 178 precincts across the state to educate voters about the constitutional marriage amendment drive being waged by the conservative group Florida4Marriage. The Human Rights Campaign and Florida Red and Blue, a nonpartisan organization combating the amendment, also coordinated more than 250 volunteers in 10 major cities, including Orlando, Jacksonville, Oakland Park, Fort Lauderdale, Wilton Manors, Tampa, Sarasota, Tallahassee, and St. Petersburg. HRC has had three full-time staff members working the state since early January, and it added another 12 people from its D.C. headquarters for the action Tuesday.

Getting the “Marriage Protection Amendment” on the Florida ballot requires 611,109 signatures from 13 different congressional districts across the state. Florida4Marriage originally claimed they had met that requirement, but miscounts and signature duplications have been uncovered over the past couple weeks, leaving the drive anywhere from 22,000 to 27,000 signatures short and one congressional district shy. The deadline for final signatures is February 1.

Nadine Smith, board member of Fairness for All Families and executive director of Equality Florida, says a broad coalition of 200 organizations has united to combat the amendment, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Planned Parenthood, and the Service Employees International Union.

Volunteers are both educating voters about the amendment and waging a “decline to sign” campaign to counter the signature drive. “We wanted to make sure we had volunteers in a variety of precincts from the most supportive to the more conservative,” says Smith. HRC and Florida Red and Blue have conducted training sessions across Florida since January in order to mobilize volunteers and teach them how to speak with voters about the amendment.

Smith says the volunteers have already encountered several situations where poll workers attempted to keep them from talking to people. By Florida law, people are allowed to engage voters as long as they are 100 feet or more away from the poll’s entrance. Lawyers were called to clarify the parameters.

According to Smith, volunteers have also witnessed some successes, even in more conservative polling places. One volunteer spoke to a man who said his church had circulated a petition about the amendment. “He said, ‘Ordinarily, I would be with them on this,’” Smith recounted, “‘but I’ve witnessed too many people who have spent too much time in hospice care seeing their savings evaporate while trying to take care of a loved one.’”

Florida already has two laws that outlaw same-sex marriage and prohibit the state from recognizing marriages performed in other states. Regardless of how many signatures Florida4Marriage submits this Friday, Smith expects a legal battle will unfold over the coming months that ultimately decides whether the amendment will appear on the ballot in November. (Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate)

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