(10/2/2006)

Opponents Charge: South Dakota Marriage Amendment Will Harm Heterosexuals

Homosexuals say law would do more than ban homosexual "marriage"

BY BOB ELLIS

DAKOTA VOICE

HJR 1001 (Amendment C): Only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in South Dakota. The uniting of two or more persons in a civil union, domestic partnership, or other quasi-marital relationship shall not be valid or recognized in South Dakota.  

SOUTH DAKOTA—Opponents of South Dakota's proposed marriage protection amendment, which was approved by 72% of the state legislature and goes to the ballot November 7, are gearing up their campaign to convince voters the bill is a bad deal.  Their focus is not only on the “civil rights” angle common to homosexual apologists, but a new twist involves telling heterosexuals it will hinder them, as well.  

A Mason-Dixon poll commissioned by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in July yielded some surprising results for South Dakota’s marriage protection amendment: only 41% said they support the amendment and 49% said they opposed it. 

This is in stark contrast to a Baptist Press report about several other states which will have similar amendments on their ballots in November, such as Tennessee where 76% of those polled say they will support the amendment.  

The chief reason for the amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman in the South Dakota constitution is to ensure that judges cannot declare existing marriage laws null and void as they have tried to do in other states. It will also prevent South Dakota from being forced to recognize homosexual “marriage” if two men or two women are considered “married” in another state that might allow it.

Rep. Elizabeth Kraus (R-Rapid City), one of the key architects of the bill, says the objections being put out by the opposition are not valid.  

One objection is that the marriage amendment will jeopardize domestic violence protections for women living with men outside of marriage, but Kraus says South Dakota laws only require that the two parties be living together. The marriage amendment, she says, will have no effect on domestic violence protections or law enforcement. South Dakota Codified Law 25-10-1 defines those who are covered by domestic violence protections as “spouses, former spouses, or persons related by consanguinity, adoption, or law, persons living in the same household, persons who have lived together, or persons who have had a child together.”   

Opponents of the bill also claim it will hinder two unmarried people who live together platonically, for instance when one provides medical or living assistance for the other, from being able to help one another in emergencies or visit during hospital stays. Again, Kraus says the marriage amendment will have no effect in this area.  

Kraus also said claims that the amendment would affect businesses that provide domestic partner benefits in South Dakota are unfounded. She reiterated that the amendment deals with the official definition of marriage and does not deal with what benefits a company chooses to offer.

While there was a question in Michigan of whether domestic partner benefits offered by the state to government employees would continue after that state passed their marriage protection amendment, the court ruled in September 2005 that the marriage protection amendment did not affect those benefits.  Though the case for denying domestic partner benefits is greater for government employees because they are taxpayer funded, a FindLaw article from Andrews Publications says Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Joyce Draganchuk nevertheless ruled,  “Health care benefits for a spouse are benefits of employment, not benefits of marriage.”  

Some who object to the marriage amendment say the bill is “too vague” because of the term “quasi-marital” contained in the bill. They say this term is obscure and not well defined which will make it difficult to determine the scope of the amendment. “Quasi” basically means “having some resemblance” or “something that appears to be something it is not.”  

However, Kraus said she and other lawmakers had countless meetings where they carefully considered each word of this amendment, and while other words with similar meanings were considered, “quasi” was found to have very well established legal precedent. Research revealed that “quasi” was used dozens of times in legal statutes (quasi-judicial, quasi-legislative, quasi-public, quasi-criminal, etc.) and had been used in almost 300 legal cases in the state of South Dakota.  

The FindLaw legal website even features an article in favor of homosexual “marriage” entitled “The Emerging Menu of Quasi-Marriage Options,” and a European law professor named Kees Waaldijk has written an article on “The Introduction of Marriage, Quasi-Marriage, and Semi-Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in European Countries,” so it appears even those opposed to the official definition of marriage as between a man and a woman understand and use the term “quasi.” 

A Google search revealed over 2,420 current news stories containing the term “quasi,” most of which dealt with subjects other than marriage; a general internet search for the term yielded 96 million separate uses of the term “quasi,” so it is not the obscure term some say it is.  

In short, Kraus says the scope of the marriage amendment deals with how marriage is officially defined and recognized publicly. It says that privileges currently only available automatically to married couples will continue to be automatically available only to married couples. Two people who are ineligible to get married will continue to be able to obtain various benefits and privileges through wills, powers of attorney, and other legal arrangements as they always have.

“This amendment simply prohibits the counterfeiting of marriage," Kraus said. “It has no effect on any legal arrangements. It doesn’t change anything that we have in our laws now. All it does is put into the constitution what we already recognize, to protect it from activist judges.”  

Kraus believes the low level of support in the recent poll has to do with how the question was asked, which was a 71-word question. She pointed out that 20 out of 20 states that have brought marriage amendments to a vote have passed them, usually with overwhelming majorities (a low of 57% in liberal Oregon and reaching up into the 80-percentile range in other states).  

“There is also a lot of misinformation out there,” Kraus said, “as evidenced by these unfounded objections.” She believes that when people understand that nothing as it currently exists in South Dakota will change, the marriage amendment will pass with the same overwhelming support seen in other states.  

The push by homosexual activists to obtain homosexual “marriage” would seem to be ideologically or economically driven, rather than by a yearning for the emotional or familial benefits of marriage.  

According to Kraus, when the marriage amendment was under consideration in the legislature, homosexual activists came to the session and gave all the legislators a booklet explaining why they opposed the marriage amendment. All ten reasons provided were economic and can be obtained outside of a marriage relationship through legal means.  

This conclusion seems to be reinforced by a study released in April 2006 from the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy which examined the demand by some homosexuals for same-sex marriage.  

The study looked at data for every jurisdiction, both within the U.S. and internationally, where homosexuals are allowed to enter into legally recognized unions.  The highest percentage of homosexuals who have entered into a same-sex union was in Massachusetts at 16.7%.   Looking at all countries that allow such unions, the average was between 1-5% of homosexuals.  The Netherlands, which has allowed it longer than any other jurisdiction (since 2001), had between 2-6% of homosexuals entering a same-sex union within the first five years of such unions being allowed.   

The report says that while trend data was somewhat limited, indications are that the meager percentage when same-sex unions first become permitted drops even lower after a while.   

Michael Bronski, a visiting professor from Canada of Women’s and Gender Studies at Dartmouth College, is cited in the study as saying,  

When I talk to my gay and lesbian students and other young queer people, there is no doubt that they are in favor of marriage equality. It’s a no-brainer: why shouldn’t there be equality under the law? But very few of them actually seem interested in getting married, now or later. That’s true of both gay men and lesbians, although the women are more inclined to consider marriage in the future. Such ambivalence stands in sharp contrast to my heterosexual students, many of whom expect to get hitched sometime in the near future and some of whom have even made plans to do so after graduation.  

In other states, homosexual groups fighting marriage laws have used deception in an attempt to derail the overwhelming support for the preservation of marriage.   

WorldNetDaily reported last year when Texans voted on their marriage amendment, fraudulent calls went out telling voters that the legislation could “overturn traditional marriage and cause people to lose health insurance, tax breaks and pensions” and even ended with “God bless you.”   Many of the calls came from a group deceptively named “Save Texas Marriage.”  The calls were denounced by Texas Supreme Court Judge Nathan Hecht.  Despite the deception, voters still approved the Texas marriage amendment by a 3-1 margin.