Box Turtle Bulletin

Where Has Burroway Been?!?

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much lately. And the way things are shaping up, I won’t be posting much between now and the election.

Last week, I was selected to serve as co-chair of the Vote No on Prop 102 campaign. Vote No on Prop 102 is a broad based coalition of citizens working at the community level to conduct a grass-roots “retail” campaign to get out the vote and carry the message on Prop 102 to the different constituencies. We will be focusing our efforts on southern Arizona , but we are also interested in facilitating similar efforts elsewhere in the state.

The reason we’ve chosen to focus on Southern Arizona is threefold: 1) it’s where we are, 2) we haven’t been able to raise much money, and we need to make sure it is used effectively, and 3) Southern Arizona is where our greatest opportunity lies in defeating Prop 102. Let me explain.

In 2006, Arizona defeated a similar marriage amendment by 3.6 percentage points. Five counties voted to defeat the amendment, and the remaining ten voted to approve it. The largest margin of votes came from Pima County in Southern Arizona, which defeated the proposition by 42,806 votes, or 15.6%.  That margin was large enough that even if all the other four counties which defeated the amendment had merely tied, the proposition would have still gone down by 18,532 votes state wide — 1.2% — on the strength of Pima County’s vote alone. Pima County was the only county to provide a large enough margin to guarantee defeat in 2006, and it is imperative that the grass-roots effort which worked to ensure that margin is repeated again in 2008.

This is not to say that working in other counties to defeat the amendment is not important. We are working alongside Equality Arizona on similar grass-roots efforts throughout the state. But based on voter data from 2006 and the successful grass-roots campaign that was waged throughout Southern Arizona, we feel that the anchor to another victory is in southern Arizona.

Nevertheless, we are also interested in supporting and facilitating grass-roots campaigns in whatever way we can elsewhere in the state, particularly in Apache, Coconino, Maricopa and Santa Cruz counties — all of which contributed to victory in 2006. We are already engaged with local efforts in several communities in Cochise county, and we believe there are similar opportunities in Yavapai and elsewhere. Our financial health will determine the extent of the support and resources we can extend throughout the state, but as you know, our finances are very poor at the moment.

We are busy formulating a campaign plan, we’re lining up some exciting allies, and we will have more information to share as the outlines of the campaign takes shape. We don’t have much time, and more critically, we have very little money. Please do what you can to help and contribute generously.

Thank you.

Forgotten Arizona?

Remember when Arizona became the first and only state in the nation to defeat an anti-marriage amendment in 2006? I don’t know about you, but I’d that that this victory would be one worth preserving. But our national LGBT leaders, movers and shakers — and ordinary contributors — haven’t come through yet:

Funding for a proposal to constitutionally ban gay marriage has hit at least $1.3 million. The largest contributors to Proposition 102 are two Mesa couples, David and Nancy LeSueur and Wilford and Kathleen Andersen, Gary and Lori Wagner of Peoria, and the Pete King Corp. of Phoenix, each of who gave $100,000.

Opponents have so far accumulated less than $8,000.

This disparity is shocking. As of our filing deadline last Thursday, we had only been able to raise $8,000. Since then, we’ve had a great fundraising event at Congressman Raul Grijalva’s office on Friday, and we plan on having more events in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, please do what you can to preserve our 2006 victory and donate to Vote No on Prop 102.

Tucson To Get First Lesbian Housing Development

I’ve often remarked to visitors about how open Tucson is for LGBT people. We really don’t have anything resembling a “gayborhood” here, but you see gay people everywhere you go. I once manned a booth at our local gay pride where we asked people to place pushpins on a map of Tucson representing where they lived. By the end of the day, there was nary a street or neighborhood untouched, and there were very few recognizable clusters in between.

One familiar company wants to literally build on that spirit:

Olivia Communities will be a 334-unit resort-style living community in Tuscon, Ariz. Although anyone can purchase a home, the company is targeting lesbians. “My whole vision of this has always been about creating community and creating a place where we can not only be free… but also the kind of community where you’re really connected with the people there and feel comfortable and happy in your environment,” said Judy Dlugacz, president and founder of Olivia Companies.

What makes this community unique, Dlugacz said, will be the social aspect. Women from their 20s to their 80s have put down deposits on condos in the development, though the most women fall in the 55- to 70-year-old age group. Olivia plans to have a full-time events coordinator who will bring in live entertainment, including comedy events and film festivals, and who will coordinate tea dances and other parties. Group excursions will be arranged to nearby locations like Las Vegas and Mexico.

Interest in the new development has been fairly high so far. Olivia has received 40 deposits and hundreds if inquiries since announcing the project in July. Construction begins when 400 deposits have been received.

Cindy Jordan-Nowe, co-chairwoman for City of Tucson Commission on GLBT issues, believes this will be a good fit for Tucson. “Tucson is a very inclusive community, years beyond other places in the country as far as embracing diversity and accepting and protecting LGBT people,” Jordan-Nowe said.

Update: The proposed development will be at the intersection of Williams and Craycroft. It appears to be the site of an already existing apartment complex, which I presume they intend to renovate and turn into condos. In the greater scheme of things, it’s not a particularly scenic part of town, but its central location could be a draw — and it’s just three and a half miles from Tucson’s favorite saphic bar, Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness.

AZ Senate Ethics Complaint Dismissed

Dismissed, just like that.

You may remember, Arizona state Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D-Phoenix) filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Jack Harper (R-Surprise), claiming that Harper and others conspired to break a filibuster and force a vote to put yet another anti-marriage amendment on the ballot. During the debate, a senator’s microphone was cut off and the floor was turned over to another senator so the vote could be taken in violation of Senate rules.

The GOP-led Senate did everything they could to brush the ethics complaint under the rug. Senate President Tim Bee (R-Tucson), whose own spineless “leadership” allowed the infractions to take place opined that he “didn’t see the point” of conducting an ethics investigation. Meanwhile, Senate leadership tried to pull a last-minute “fix” of the ethics panel’s membership. The ethics panel eventually met, only to decide they didn’t need to call any witnesses. And with no witnesses other than Cheuvront and Harper, well, I guess they decided there was nothing to see here.

And with that party-line whitwash, Arizona’s corrupt, do-anything-for-a-win GOP-controlled political culture remains intact.

Who Is Behind Arizona’s Marriage Amendment?

This woman: Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy. CAP is an official state policy council of Colorado Springs-based Focus On the Family.

This is the lobbyist who Arizona Senate President Timothy Bee (R-Tucson) denounced from the Senate dias — just before he crumpling himself under the pressure and casting the deciding 16th vote to put yet another anti-marriage amendment before the voters. Arizonans already said no to a previous attempt in 2006. Herrod didn’t like that answer, so she’s trying again for 2008.

Here’s shorter video featuring Cathi Herrod. Notice the message discipline. You can help to defeat Arizona’s Prop 102 here.

[Hat tip: Tucson Observer]

Will Arizona Be Abandoned?

This is a question I am asked nearly everyday from folks in Arizona and from folks around the country. They ask questions like how much support came from outside Arizona in 2006? Will anyone outside of Arizona give money this time to defeat Prop 102? Will anyone inside Arizona give money? How do you feel about so much money going to California? What about Florida? Can Arizona win this one too? Do you feel abandoned by those supporting California especially but also Florida since Arizona is the only state in the nation to defeat an anti-marriage amendment?

There is no easy answer to any of those questions. Frankly, I’m not sure there is value in even trying to come up with an answer. I do believe however, the real value lies in the fact that we are even having this discussion. Internal and external to Arizona.

In an odd way it shows people care. They care enough about Arizona’s contribution to the movement to worry whether we might be slighted financially in this campaign season. They care enough about our statewide LGBT infrastructure to be concerned we are not damaged in the process – at least hopeful that we might escape long term or irreparable damage.

Instead of answering those questions with only the “what’s in front of us” view, I prefer to answer from a 30,000 foot perspective. That means we have to look at our work as a marathon and not a sprint. It means we cannot be angry or feel slighted by donors who, from their own perspective, believe their need and desire to participate in the movement, to make a difference, is best served by giving to a campaign that in their opinion would provide the greatest impact to achieving equality – to meeting their personal political goals. Because we all come from different backgrounds, different economies, different cultural experiences, no one has any right to pass judgment on another for the decisions we make in political giving. Sometimes those decisions are very personal, sometimes they are just hard core strategic moves and sometimes they are the simplicity of altruism.

The higher ground at 30,000 feet allows us to let wash beneath our feet the hardness created by politics – in a way it is cleansing. Don’t think for a minute though that coming down from the high ground to do the work is easy. But we have to have a place to land. Something you can touch, hear and believe in. For me that place is community – it is the work. It is the very place where we interact with one another on a very human and hopefully humanitarian level. It is that place that sometimes stinks, sometimes is so loud with opposing voices you can’t hear yourself think and on occasion calls into question our belief in that very humanity we seek to be a part of.

Over the past several weeks in particular we have been fighting a battle that stems from the worst display of disintegration of democracy I have ever witnessed. We are fighting with every tool at our disposal to call out those who would seek to limit the fullness of our lives in order to advance their own.

Amidst our ongoing Senate debacle we have organized and are executing our 2008 elections strategy; we have organized a Statewide Coordinated Campaign to defeat Prop 102; and we continue to build the capacity of Equality Arizona – design and deliver programs that change hearts and minds while also managing a hard-hitting public affairs agenda to change public policy.

We need a win in California. We need a win in Florida. We need a win in Arizona. That very trifecta has the potential to change the face of American politics. Just for clarification, “trifecta” as a slang term is used to describe any successful or favorable phenomenon or characteristic that comes in threes (according to Wikipedia). That’s what our national agenda should be about.

There is often much angst about coastal states dictating what happens to the rest of the country but today, we need to support our coasts! And yes, tucked into the Southwest – in a place in mid-August where you’re sure you’re already doing time in purgatory – we WILL continue to do our part to advance equality – to contribute to the greater good of our great state and our nation.

Do we want and need your contributions? Yes! Not at the exclusion of California or Florida but in addition too. Just do it. Don’t hesitate, don’t even blink. Just write the checks…address one to California, one to Florida and one to Arizona and sign them simply…from one who cares.

Barbara McCullough-Jones is the Executive Director of Equality Arizona. You can support Arizona’s efforts at the Vote No On Prop 102 website.

AZ Senate To Investigate Ethics Complaint

In a surprise move after Arizona GOP leaders tried to “fix” the makeup of the Senate Ethics committee at the last minute, the committee voted 3-2 this afternoon to investigate the actions of Sen. Jack Harper (R-Surprise) on the last night of the legislative session. Harper’s actions in breaking the Senate rules cut off debate and forced a vote on the anti-marriage amendment.

[Ethics committee chairman] Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, sided with the two Democrats on the panel in concluding that further inquiry is needed to “clear the air” on what happened when Harper, chairing floor debate, shut off the microphones of two legislators in the middle of discussion. That cleared the way to table that issue and vote to put a measure on the November ballot to constitutionally ban gay marriage. Harper left Monday’s meeting and the building before the session was over and did not return calls seeking comment.

At the time he shut off the microphones, Harper said he had made a mistake. But Harper has since said the move was a conscious decision because the two lawmakers were “making the same point over and over again.” The Ethics Committee hearing will give panel members a chance to ask Harper about the inconsistencies.

…

Harper interrupted the dialogue between Cheuvront and Aboud and turned off their microphones. “I clicked on the wrong thing,” he said at the time. “I clicked on the ‘clear mikes’ (button).”

But rather than turning the floor back to the pair, he instead recognized Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, who moved to table further debate, paving the way for a vote on the gay marriage ban. And Harper ignored clearly audible calls for a “point of order,” which is supposed to stop action.

Harper and Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D-Phoenix), who lodged the complaint, are both expected to appear before the panel. It’s unclear who else may be called.

AZ GOP Tries To “Fix” Ethics Committee

How low can Arizona’s Republican-led Senate go?

A few days ago, we reported that state Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D-Phoenix) filed an ethics complaint against Jack Harper (R-Surprise), the Senate chairman who deliberately broke Senate rules to force a vote on the anti-marriage amendment by shutting off a microphone during debate. Now the Arizona Republic is reporting that the GOP-controlled ethics panel has tried to stack the panel with a last-minute substitution ahead of tomorrow’s hearing:

Like all legislative panels, the majority GOP has an advantage. But that advantage nearly became a strangle-hold: One of the two Democrats, Rep. Leah Landrum Taylor, remains on doctor-ordered bed rest following childbirth and can’t attend. Republican leadership’s answer? Replace her with another Democrat who can’t be there, of course. Sen. Victor Soltero wasn’t asked before he was appointed, and is scheduled to be away on vacation. Democrats finally scored with an assist from committee chairman Sen. Jay Tibshraeny.

“I believe to maintain the integrity of this important process, Senator Landrum Taylor needs to be temporarily replaced with someone who is able to attend the meeting,” Tibshraeny, a Chandler Republican, wrote in a memo to Senate President Tim Bee. (Emphasis added by The Republic.)

Sen. Richard Miranda is now slated to fill in for Soltero to fill in for Landrum Taylor. No word yet on who will fill in for Miranda for Soltero for Landrum Taylor if something happens.

Want to know how blatant Harper’s rule-breaking was?

Try following this: At the time Harper cut off mikes for Cheuvront and [Sen. Paula] Aboud [D-Tucson], he immediately apologized and called it inadvertent. But, from his position presiding over the session, Harper didn’t return speaking privileges to Aboud, who had been cut-off in mid-sentence. Instead, Harper turned over the floor to a poised and ready-to-speak Sen. Thayer Verschoor. Now, though, Harper claims he was right to turn off the mikes, because he believes the debate was “dilatory” and, thus, out-of-order.

We can safely expect a whitewash on Monday, par for the course in politics today. A majority of Americans feel that we are on the wrong track, and for the first time in fourteen years, Arizona voters hold the same opinion. Is it any wonder with state and national leadership like this?

Bee “Doesn’t See The Point” of Ethics Investigation

Arizona State Senate President Tim Bee (R-Tucson) rejected a request to appoint a bipartisan panel to investigate whether Republicans broke legislative rules when they improperly ended a filibuster attempt to vote on the same-sex marriage amendment:

“I don’t see the point in it,” Bee, a Tucson Republican, said Wednesday of the request to appoint an independent panel. “If I were to appoint a separate commission it wouldn’t have any authority other than to have a hearing.”

… Bee said, “I had concerns about the way that came down that night,” but he said he would leave the decision to the Ethics Committee. He said he was “absolutely not” involved in any plan to break Senate rules.

A Senate attorney has already concluded Senate Chairman Jack Harper (R-Surprise) violated the rules by cutting off the discussion. Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D-Phoenix) filed a complaint to the Senate Ethics committee, which has agreed to discuss the issue on Monday.

Bee’s unethical performance in those final hours of the legislative session is a topic that he wishes would just go away. He’s currently running for Congress in District 8 against Democratic incumbent Gabrielle Giffords.  In 2006, CD8 voted to defeat a proposed same-sex marraige ban 45.4% to 54.6%. That was a significantly wider margin than the statewide vote of 48.2% to 51.8%.

AZ Senate Panel To Hear Ethics Complaint

We reported last month about the egregious and blatant breach of Senate rules which led to the Arizona Senate’s vote to place an anti-marriage amendment on the ballot. On Monday, State Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D-Phoenix) filed an ethics complaint against Jack Harper (R-Surprise). While acting as Senate chairman, Harper ignored Senate rules to summarily stop a debate serving as a filibuster. Cheuvront’s complaint seeks an investigation and reprimand by the full Senate.

Today, the Ethics Committee’s chairman, Sen. Jay Tibshraeny (R-Chandler) declined to summarily dismiss the complaint, and will call on the full committee to decide whether to investigate the matter or drop it. The committee consists of two Democrats and two Republicans, in addition to Tibshraeny. A meeting was scheduled for Monday to decide whether to investigate or drop the complaint.

On June 27, Tibshraeny told fellow senators that he lamented a loss of decorum by the Senate. He has since said that his comments were generally directed and not specifically aimed at the controversy over Harper’s action as chairman.

Flagstaff Hate Crime Assailant Charged With Felony

We reported last month about four Flagstaff, Arizona men who were arrested following an assault on gay pride participants. One man was left unconscious and bleeding following the attack. Today we learn that one of those arrested, Travis A. Reiner, 24, of Flagstaff, has been charged with one felony count of aggravated assault and misdemeanor counts of assault and disorderly conduct.

Police called the assault a hate crime because of anti-gay slurs that were shouted by the suspects. David Rozema, chief deputy Coconino County attorney said in a statement that Arizona no longer has a separate hate crime law. Rozema said that evidence of the crime being committed due to sexual orientation can be presented during sentencing in order to seek a stiffer sentence.

LaBarbera Award: Perennial AZ Candidate Joe Sweeney’s “Genital Drives” and Mexican Whorehouses

It’s time to give Oklahoma a bit of a rest. Today’s LaBarbera Award winner comes from my own back yard, right here in Tucson, Arizona. And there is no better recipient than our very own 13-time candidate and zero-time winner for Congress, Republican Joe Sweeney.

Arizona has a non-presidential primary coming up on September 9, and Republican candidates Joe Sweeney and Gene Chewning are running for Congressman Raul Grijalva’s congressional seat. Sweeney and Chewning sat down with reporters from the Tucson Citizen for a videotaped interview. This was Sweeney response when he was asked to give his position on the proposed anti-marriage amendment:

Sweeney: Yeah, I wouldn’t have a problem supporting that. I think you just can’t have two generations that are so confused about their genital drive or sexuality that they don’t know whether they’re coming or going. You can’t just add to that. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire when you let this kind of nonsense going on and on.

And it goes back all the way to Sodomite statutes they had over in England back in the 1530’s. It was a felony. They’d put you in prison for a year if you conducted that kind of behavior.

Q: Was that good?

Sweeney: Yeah. Sure, they needed to do that. Otherwise you’d have even more chaos. People get addicted to these strange ways of exercising their genital drives. Once it becomes addictive, you’ve got a real problem, social problem.

Actually, when England enacted it’s anti-sodomy statutes in the 1500’s the penalty was death. Just so you know.

But that’s not the only lunacy coming from Sweeney’s mouth. It seems that when he thinks of homosexuals, he thinks of “genital drives” and whorehouses in Mexico. I really don’t know how anyone except Sweeney himself can make any sense of this, so I’ll just leave you with this video excerpt and relevant transcript without comment. Unfortunately , the video ends before the good part about whorehouses, but you can see the full video on the Tucson Citizen’s web site.

Sweeney: Yeah, you know, this Sodomite behavior is not marriage. It’s just, you can’t go with that, I mean, we’ve got a society that was founded on the principles of Christian doctrine, and that’s what you’ve got to go with. That’s what made this country, an ideology worth repeating.

Q: Actually, the country was founded on deist principles.

Sweeney: Well, it’s a deism that’s supported by some sense of revelations. Some sense that, that well over there was witched. That’s a sense of revelation. Do you see what I’m trying to say? We’ve got dogmatic theology and theistic theology and all that, but we also have the primacy of revelation theology that a lot of times is neglected by what I call “low church,” people that don’t understand the elevation of revelation theology.

Q: So, again I’m going to ask the same question I asked Mr. Chewning. Basically, a secular reason why two consenting adults of the same sexual orientation should not be married or allowed to be married.

Sweeney: Well because it’s addictive and it creates social chaos, social problems.

Q: Just out of curiosity, what would you base that on?

Sweeney: Well I would base that on the fact that people come together with their genital drives, and they either bridle their genital drives — and that’s what a marriage contract is supposed to be about — or they just go around acting like they can go whoring down in Nogales or prostituting anywhere they want, they can do whatever they want with their bodies. They don’t have any higher responsibility other than their own gratification. [Note: The video snippet above ends here; the full video continues with the following] Hedonism, which is maximizing pleasure over pain. And that’s what happens at Nogales every night when they go down there whoring and causing all the social strife. Now they got those kids in the whorehouses in Nogales coming up here to Tucson to be anchor babies. You know I’ve witnessed that stuff.

Q: Okay, so there’s another question following that. You guys both have said marriage should be between a man and a woman. What about a transgender person who used to be a man, now became a woman and wants to marry a man.

Sweeney: Well, I’ve got a friend like that. And… you know… That’s what he wants to do with his social activity and his life, his social functioning, that’s up to him, you know? But to say that we have to validate that, the rest of society has to validate that kind of behavior, you know, let him conduct his behavior the way that he’s going to conduct his behavior. You know, I don’t agree with prostitution in Mexico, but they have laws that say it’s a way of functioning, socially functional society five feet the other side of the border that allows that to happen. We think the repercussions of that totally outweigh the responsibilities.

Q: Just out of curiosity, what do you think that homosexuals have to do with whorehouses in Mexico?

Sweeney: Oh, I don’t know. We’ve got the only Southwest weekly newspaper, we’ve got more homosexuals down here than we’ve got a lot of other kinds of people.

Q: Again, what does that got to do with whorehouses in Mexico?

Sweeney: Well, what happens is you get what I call a hedonistic attractiveness to do anything and everything with your genital drive . ….

Q: Again, are the homosexuals frequenting the whorehouses?

Sweeney: I wouldn’t be surprised. Anything can happen around this town. We’ve got gay bars down on Fourth Avenue …

Sweeney ran for Congress twelve times before as a Democrat, a Republican, a Democrat, a New Alliance Party member and then Republican again, and he’s lost every time. Last year he captured the Republican nomination and the local party did everything they could to distance themselves from this gadfly. He’s just one of those people you can always count on around here to give the local elections a bit of, ah, color.

Chewning, believe it or not, may lose the primary to Sweeney this year on Sweeney’s name recognition alone. Not that Chewning is any kind of a political rocket scientist himself, if this video is any indication. Something about marrying first cousins or German Shepherds. At least Sweeney is creative.

Fortunately, the 7th is a very safe district for Rep. Grijalva.

All of you Oklahomans out there — feel better now?

Bumbling Bee Won’t Say Where He’ll Land

This is just nuts. Arizona Sen. Tim Bee (R-Tucson), who cast the crucial sixteenth vote to place the anti-marriage amendment on the ballot, just can’t make up his mind about where he stands on the issue. First, he signed on as a co-sponsor of the amendment. Then he took on Rep. Jim Kolbe as his honorary chairman for his race against Gabrielle Giffords (D) for the eighth Congressional district. That led him to try to bottle the amendment up in the state Senate. Then, in the final hours of the legislative session, he blasted the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) for their threats and coercive tactics, but then crumpled under the pressure to cast the deciding vote. That led Kolbe to abandon Bee’s campaign. Then the Tucson Citizen asked Bee about his opinion on same-sex marriage and he struggled to come up with a coherent answer.

Now the Arizona Daily Star is reporting that he won’t answer another simple question: will he vote for the marriage ban in November?

But asked whether he’d support the measure — a hallmark issue for social conservatives — now that he’s voted to put it on the ballot, Bee wouldn’t say, calling it his “private vote.”  “I think ultimately, as I tell my members, vote your conscience,” he said.

Bee is trying to play both sides and failing miserably. You cannot denounce CAP’s threats and divisive politics on one hand only to turn around and do their bidding on the other. And you cannot first sponsor a same-sex marriage ban before trying to duck the question just because you’re running in a congressional district that voted against Prop 107 in 2006 by more than a 9% margin.

That 2006 vote was decisive. Bee isn’t. If he can’t make up his mind on this and show some fortitude in front of fellow Arizonans, how can we expect him to make an unassisted decision in Washington?

Paula Aboud: State Senate Breaks Trust

We earlier described how the Arizona State Senate broke its own rules to cram a last-minute vote on the anti-marriage amendment in the session’s final hours. That was when State Senate President Tim Bee finally crumpled under the pressure from Cathi Harrod’s Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), the anti-gay lobbying group that is a political arm of Focus On the Family, to ignore the rule violations and cast the deciding sixteenth vote.

In today’s op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star, Sen. Paula Aboud (D-Tucson) describes how the Republican leadership blatantly broke their own Senate rules to force the vote. She also revealed how immoral these “defenders of morality” really are. Speaking of Republican leaders Thayer Verschoor (R-Phoenix), John Huppenthal (R-Phoenix), and Sen. Jack Harper’s (R-Surprise) actions, Sen. Aboud says:

These three Republican senators have heaped dishonor upon themselves and the institution that they are sworn to serve in order to protect “marriage.” The means do not justify the end — no matter what. State lawmakers, above all, must set the highest example of obeying the law. If they publicly break the rules just to win, they lose their moral authority to serve the state ever again.

These men should not be allowed to break the rules without consequences. The voters have an opportunity to deliver those consequences.

Bee Knows His Anti-Marriage Vote Was A Mistake

Arizona State Sen. Tim Bee knows that his crucial sixteenth vote to place the anti-marriage amendment on the ballot was a terrible mistake that he wishes would just go away. Especially now that Kolbe has withdrawn his support. The Tucson Citizen’s Mark Kimble offers this anecdote:

In a visit this week with the Tucson Citizen Editorial Board, Arnie Bermudez, the Citizen’s cartoonist, asked Bee a logical question: Why shouldn’t gay couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples?

Bee was speechless. He looked at his aide, Dunn, then back at Bermudez. For an uncomfortable 15 or 20 seconds, he said absolutely nothing hunting for an answer. Then Bee said he “was not judgmental,” “likes people of all persuasions” and feels “the core family is an important thing.”

This is not an issue Bee wants in this campaign. But Kolbe’s absence will not let it go away.

And neither will we.