Despite Republican rhetoric, marriage equality wins big at the ballot box

Voters in California, Colorado, and Hawaii approved ballot measures amending their constitutions to remove language banning marriage equality by significant margins on Tuesday.

In California, Proposition 3, Constitutional Right to Marriage, amends the California Constitution to remove language stating that marriage exists only between men and women. Prop. 3 leads by 61.1 percent to 38.9 percent, with over 95 percent of the estimated vote counted.

In Colorado, Measure J removes the language “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state” from the Colorado Constitution. Measure J passed with over 63 percent of the vote, Colorado Public Radio reports.

In Hawaii, Question #1 asked voters, “Shall the state constitution be amended to repeal the legislature’s authority to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples?” Over 52 percent voted yes to the question, the Star Advertiser reports.

The three victories provided a ray of hope for the LGBTQ+ community on a night that saw Donald Trump retaking the Presidency and the Republicans regaining control of the Senate.

The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality California hailed the news.

“This vote is a tremendous victory for fairness, justice, and love,” Tony Hoang, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “We are grateful to all those who voted to reaffirm the freedom to marry and protect loving couples and families across California who deserve to have their marriages protected and respected under the law.”

Hoang noted the importance of state-level protections following Trump’s victory and hints by the U.S. Supreme Court that some justices may be willing to revisit and even overturn the historic 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision recognizing marriage equality.

“With the current makeup of the Supreme Court, there is no guarantee that the precedent set by Obergefell almost ten years ago will hold,” Hoang continued. “If the Supreme Court can overturn almost fifty years of precedent — as they did with Roe v. Wade — we cannot assume it will uphold a decision protecting marriage equality for same-sex couples not even a decade old.”

Nadine Bridges, executive director at the LGBTQ+ advocacy group One Colorado, echoed Hoang’s desire for protections on the state level when speaking with CPR. Amendment 43 banning marriage equality was approved by voters in 2006, and Bridges said Amendment J preemptively neutered future anti-marriage equality decisions by federal courts.

“We most certainly don’t want folk to have to question if something were to happen at the federal level through the Supreme Court,” Bridges said. “We don’t want anybody to be concerned, and so the best way to do that to ensure fully that same-sex marriage can continue to occur in the state is to repeal Amendment 43.”