Civil Debate Is on the Ballot Too

Chuck Donovan / October 23, 2009

As citizens in Maine and Washington state near votes on measures to protect traditional marriage, a subtheme of the debate on this issue is being raised anew: the harassment and intimidation of advocates of traditional marriage by their opponents on the issue. On Wednesday of this week, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-1 to preserve a stay on Washington state’s planned publishing of the names of citizens who signed the petition that put marriage-equivalent benefits for same-sex couples on the November 3 ballot. Washington’s law SB 5688 is controversial because it creates a functional equivalent of marriage in a state that overwhelmingly approved a Defense of Marriage law in 1998.

Threats and acts of intimidation, property destruction and other forms of violence against proponents of traditional marriage reached their peak last year in the aftermath of California voters’ decision to amend their state constitution to protect marriage. As a just-released paper by Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow Tom Messner documents, the incidents were widespread and serious, including loss of employment and even physical violence. Many of those incidents involved confrontations aimed by same-sex marriage activists at obvious targets – Catholic, Mormon and evangelical churches actively supporting the constitutional amendment – and citizens who had placed pro-Prop-8 signage on their property. Other incidents were more indirect, involving threats and reprisals against employers and employees as a result of the publication of citizens’ names and addresses on easily accessed web sites. (more…)