Box Turtle Bulletin

Proposition 8 Goes Forward

The California Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal brought by civil rights groups to keep the anti-gay marriage ban off the ballot. Their argument was that

1. Those signing were told that the initiative would not change the law, just keep it the same. This is no longer true. California law now recognizes marriage.

2. The language of the proposition does not amend the constitution. Because it is not just a matter of changing marriage law but instead goes to the heart of equal protection and discrimination against a suspect class, it revises the nature of the Constitution, which is a much more complicated process than just an initiative.

Per the San Jose Mercury News

Without comment, the court unanimously refused to hear the legal challenge, filed last month by civil rights groups. The organizations argued that the ballot measure was legally flawed and should not be put before the voters.

The latest legal salvo most likely ensures that voters will consider the measure, which would amend the state Constitution to confine marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

Massachusetts Senate Votes to Open Marriage to Out-of-Staters

The AP is reporting

The Massachusetts Senate has voted to repeal a 1913 law used to bar out-of-state gay couples from marrying in the state.

The law prohibits couples from obtaining marriage licenses if they couldn’t legally wed in their home states.

The House is expected to vote this week.

I find that unfortunate. Truly. As a Californian, I wanted us to have the advantage – at least for a while – of wedding tourism.

But I guess I have to be unselfish and offer my best wishes for passage in the House. Then those same-sex couples that are residents of Rhode Island and New York and who wish their state to honor their marriage won’t have to fly to California or leave the country in order to legally marry.

Founder of Desert Stream Complains about Gay Wedding Coverage

On July 4, the Kansas City Star published an article by Derrik J. Lang with the headline At California’s gay weddings, traditions remain strong. In the article, Lang investigated whether same-sex weddings were similar to opposite-sex weddings and found that gay couples are opting mostly to follow tradition.

Rhodes said most wedding conventions — invitations, music, formal attire, cake, Champagne — are finding their way into the same-sex ceremonies that her full-service wedding and events planning company has been hired for since the California Supreme Court’s ruling in May.

The article didn’t touch on whether gay people should marry or delve into discussions about civil rights, religion, philosophy, politics or other contentious matters that often surround discussions around same-sex marriage.

But nonetheless, this article didn’t sit well with Andrew Comiskey. Comiskey is the ex-gay who founded Desert Stream ministries and will be a keynote speaker for Exodus International’s Freedom Conference next week in Asheville, NC.

He wrote a letter to the editor objecting to the use of certain words when discussing gay unions.

Soothing readers with words like “tradition,” “commitment” and “marriage equality,” Lang tried to normalize the gay marriage experience, even implying that these unions are so authentic, they don’t have to “hide behind a basic ritual.”

They cannot hide, because anyone with common sense knows that a wedding and a marriage celebrates only one thing: the audacious effort of a man and a woman to become one unit for life, a truth lost on the California Supreme Court when it overturned the will of the people and mandated gay marriage last May.

Wordplay matters in the battle for marriage, and Lang showed his hand shamelessly. I urge The Star to opt for more objective reporting on this crucial topic.

Now I’ve seen plenty of anti-gays use snear quotes aroung the words “gay” or “marriage”. But it really takes a truly bigoted mindset to insist that the words “tradition” and “commitment” are the exclusive property of heterosexuality.

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?

California United Methodists Support Marriage

Highland Boulevard is a major street running through Hollywood. And due to a bend in the road between the Kodak Theater and the Hollywood Bowl, those drivers heading north have centered in their windshield the tower of the Hollywood United Methodist Church adorned with a twenty foot high red AIDS ribbon.

This symbol, now a landmark in Hollywood, went up when many others who claim Christianity as their private domain had rejected and demonized those who were afflicted by HIV and AIDS. Fifteen years later, it tells the many thousands of commuters who pass by that this Christian congregation in its beautiful traditional sactuary remains committed to the words that the denomination has adopted, “open hearts, open minds, open doors”.

And this body of believers, a Reconciling Congregation that marches in the Gay Pride parade, appears to be representative of the UMC churches in the state. While national church considers homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching” and rules prohibit the UMC churches or ministers from conducting same-sex marriages, the California Methodists are declaring their defiance of these rules and their support and welcome of gay couples.

A United Methodist News Service article, via the Dallas Morning News, reports

The church’s California-Pacific Annual Conference [Southern California], convening June 18-22 in Redlands, approved three measures that support same-gender couples entering into the marriage covenant. Each “encourages both congregations and pastors to welcome, embrace and provide spiritual nurture and pastoral care for these families,” according to a June 27 letter to the conference from Bishop Mary Ann Swenson and other conference leaders.

That same week in Sacramento, the California-Nevada Annual Conference [Northern California] approved two measures on the same issue, including one that lists 67 retired United Methodist clergy in northern California who have offered to conduct same-gender marriage ceremonies. The resolution commends the pastors’ work in offering continued ministry.

A Guardian article places the number of Northern California retired UMC Ministers offering to perform same-sex weddings at 82. By congregations declaring their support for the retired ministers, they can express their support for gay couples without the threat of having their active pastor defrocked.

The Southern California conference also voted to oppose Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment.

The support of the state’s United Methodists is most welcome. As more houses of worship declare their opposition to exclusionary political efforts, this debate becomes less a battle between the Holy and the Profane and becomes better understood as an effort by a few to introduce discrimination into the state’s constitution.

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.

More On Kolbe and Bee’s Parting of Ways

Former US Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) still isn’t directly saying why he has withdrawn his support for Arizona State Senate President Tim Bee’s run for Kolbe’s old Congressional seat. But what he’s not saying is leaving little doubt about the reasons.

Last week, Kolbe announced that he would no longer serve as Bee’s honorary chairman. That announcement came just a few days after Bee’s crucial sixteenth vote to place the anti-marriage amendment again on the ballot. A similar effort was rejected by Arizona voters in 2006.

While Kolbe isn’t talking about his decision, that’s not keeping others from talking. Mark Kimble, writing for today’s Tucson Citizen, describes Kolbe’s reversal as “a stunning six-month turnaround”:

On Jan. 19, Kolbe stood at Bee’s side as Bee announced he would run against Democratic incumbent Gabrielle Giffords for the U.S. House in District 8 – a seat that Kolbe held until he retired in 2006. When Bee stressed his commitment to bipartisanship, Kolbe told reporters, “That’s what we need in Washington.”

Kolbe’s support went beyond that. Just last month, Kolbe opened his Washington, D.C., townhome to host a fundraiser for Bee. And now Kolbe is out, with neither man saying why.

Kimble reports that Kolbe remained circumspect in a telephone interview. When asked why he withdrew, Kolbe said he would “not have a long, protracted discussion” about it. But when asked directly whether he still supported Bee, Kolbe demurred, saying, “I’m not going to get into playing that game.”

You know, if Kolbe still supported Bee in the general, non-endorsing, “I hope we can change the seat to a Republican seat” kind of way, that would not be difficult to say. But Kolbe didn’t even offer that minimal support.

But if that’s not clear enough, there’s this: When Bee was asked why Kolbe withdrew his support, Bee said, “Jim has some personal things going on now that he needs to focus on.” What are those “personal things”? Illness? Death in the family? Catching up on All My Children episodes? He wouldn’t say. But whatever they are, they aren’t keeping Kolbe from hosting a fundraiser tomorrow for state Rep, Pete Hershberger (R-Tucson), who is running for the state Senate.

Why Hershberger and not Bee? Maybe it’s because Hershberger was one of only two state House Republicans who voted against the anti-marriage amendment last May.

Connerly Speaks Up for Gay Marriage

Ward Connerly is a conservative black Republican. He opposes affirmative action and has led successful initiative drives in California, Michigan and Washington to remove race from being considered as part of college acceptance or hiring practices.

While some may think that being conservative and being opposed to affirmative action equates to anti-gay, for Connerly this naturally leads to supporting equality for gay persons. In an interview with the Arizona Republic Connerly said the following:

The government shouldn’t be making distinctions about people on the basis of what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms. And those within my party that try to inject the government into that, they’re not the conservative, I’m the conservative. I’m saying, keep government small, keep government out of people’s personal lives. If you’re going to give benefits to people who happen to be straight, give the same benefits to people who are gay. That to me was a very easy call.

I took a lot of heat from “strong conservatives” who said that I was eroding the concept of marriage. I’m not “eroding the concept of marriage.” If marriage is that fragile, that giving people who are gay equal benefit (would cause harm), then we’re in big trouble. I believe in the institution of marriage, but I also believe in freedom. I believe in treating people equally. . . .

I grew up in a time when I was forbidden from marrying people who were not of my race. In 1962, when my wife and I got married, in some parts of the country, we would have been breaking the law. It wasn’t until 1967, when the Supreme Court in the Loving (vs. Virginia) case said that that’s unconstitutional. So, I feel very strongly that the government shouldn’t be treating people differently just because they are gay.

Those conservatives in Arizona who are happy to have Connerly support the end of affirmative action should listen to his advice when voting on the anti-gay amendment in November. And California voters may want to take note of James Kirchick’s article in the Advocate

Connerly, who is black and grew up in the Deep South, told me that efforts to amend his state’s constitution to ban gay marriage remind him of antimiscegenation laws. “For anyone to say that this is an issue for people who are gay and that this isn’t about civil rights is sadly mistaken,” he says. “If you really believe in freedom and limited government, to be intellectually consistent and honest you have to oppose efforts of the majority to impose their will on people.”

Kern Co. Supervisors Reject Anti-Gay Ordinance

We told you in June about the lunatic idea that Randy Thomasson and the Campaign for Children and Families came up with to try and have Kern County Supervisors put an ordinance in place restricting marriage to the opposite sex.

Not surprisingly, the County’s counsel informed them that this was unquestionably unconstitutional. And the County Supervisors decided that inviting lawsuits that they were guaranteed to lose was not a wise decision.

In a WorldNetDaily article before today’s decision, Thomasson had these words to say:

“This will be as inspirational as the Alamo, without the guns, knives, blood or death,” he said.

The more I hear from Thomasson, the more I’m beginning to think he’s a simpleton. I truly hope that the anti-gays keep him as the voice of Proposition 8; he improves our chances of defeating the bigoted amendment.

In a bit of sad news, however, the Supervisors did not override Barnett and deputize Kern County employees to perform civil marriages. So indigent heterosexual Kern County couples will have to expend additional funds so that elected officials can spite gay residents.

See also:
Kern Co. Supervisors Reject Anti-Gay Ordinance
Calaveras County Joins Kern and Butte
Barnett Breaks Her Media Silence – Stupidly, of Course
Chad Vegas – Kern Co. School Board Trustee’s Double Standard
Ann Barnett Annoys Local Bakersfield Media
Two More California Counties Stop Officiating at Weddings
CA Anti-Gays Either Completely Idiotic or Shameless Liars
No Non-Religious Marriages in Kern County
A Voice of Reason in Kern Co.
Kern Co. (Bakersfield) Clerk Ann K. Barnett Cancels Straight Weddings
More Bakersfield Bigotry
Bakersfield – Not a Place to Plan Your Wedding

Kolbe Ends Support For Bee

Last week, after Arizona Senate President Tim Bee (right) buckled under the threats and pressure from Cathi Herrod’s Center for Arizona Policy and cast the cowardly deciding vote to place the anti-marriage amendment on the ballot, we asked where former Rep. Jim Kolbe stood in all this. Kolbe (left) was Tim Bee’s honorary chairman for Bee’s campaign for Congress in Arizona’s eighth district, which was the the seat that Kolbe once held as an out gay Congressman for ten years.

Today, we may have something of an answer:

“I will not be actively campaigning for Bee,” the former Republican congressman said during a telephone interview with the Herald/Review on Thursday.

… Tom Dunn, a spokesman for the Bee campaign, also confirmed Kolbe’s decision. “For personal reasons, Mr. Kolbe is no longer associated with our campaign,” Dunn said. Neither Kolbe nor Dunn provided specific reasons for the former congressman dropping out of campaigning for Bee.

I don’t understand why Kolbe needs to be so coy about this, but I’m glad that he’s distancing himself from Bee nevertheless.

In 2006, the eighth Congressional district defeated Prop 107, that year’s proposed anti-marriage amendment, by more than ten percentage points: 45.4% to 54.6%. That was a significantly wider margin than the statewide tally of 48.2% to 51.8%.

Update: While Kolbe is silent on why he broke with Bee, Daniel Scarpinato is setting the obvious conclusions to print in this morning’s Arizona Daily Star (registration required):

According to Dunn, the switch came within the last week. Also in the last week: Bee, president of the state Senate, was the decisive vote on sending a measure to the ballot asking voters to define marriage in the Arizona Constitution as solely between one man and one woman.

And Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress before his retirement in 2006, had expressed disagreement with Bee on the issue shortly after it was announced in January that Kolbe would be the honorary chairman for Bee’s campaign. For his part, Bee dodged questions about the measure all year — and avoided bringing it up for a vote until the final hours of a 166-day legislative session. Up to that point, Kolbe had been active in the campaign throughout the spring and summer, hosting a fundraiser for Bee in Washington just last month.

… The support of Kolbe — a highly popular moderate during his 22-year tenure representing Southern Arizona — was a major highlight of Bee’s long-awaited campaign kickoff in January. Kolbe had refused to endorse the GOP nominee for his seat in 2006, Randy Graf. And we all remember how that ended.

For those outside of Arizona who don’t know, Graf lost badly what had been a reasonably reliable Republican seat to Democrat Gabrielle Giffords.

Meanwhile, Bee and Cochise County Republicans are trying to pretend that all is well.

Anti-Gay Politics, Arizona Style

The Tucson Observer has published a first person account of the final hours of the Arizona Senate’s passage of the anti-marriage amendment. In this Legislative Update by Representative Steve Farley (D-Tucson) you really get a sense of the boorish, contemptible behavior of a Republican majority with no regard for their own rules. And you also get a sense of how spineless Senate President Timothy Bee was throughout all of this.

After the budget was finished Thursday night, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Mesa) made an attempt to adjourn sine die and end the session right away. Unfortunately, he got the wording wrong, so Majority Leader Tom Boone (R-Peoria)–who had other plans in mind for a number of unfinished bills–made a substitute motion to recess which canceled out Biggs’ motion when the vast majority of the body, unsure what to do, stood in support of Boone.

That paved the way for us to come back the next day for a horrible day of legislating where a whole lot of bad things happened, none worse than the resurrection of the anti-marriage amendment.

You may recall that we have spent much of the session fighting Republican efforts to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to outlaw Gay marriage, which is already illegal. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix) carried out an ingenious strategy to derail the House version of the bill several months ago.

As a referendum, it is not subject to veto by the Governor — it goes directly to the voters if approved by both houses of the Legislature. Right-wingers in the House have been conspiring with the Center for Arizona Policy ever since to find a way to bring another version to the floor.

On May 12, that new version, SCR1042, passed out of the House by one vote when Rep. Marian McClure (R-Green Valley) changed her vote to Yes, under pressure from her partners running for the Corporation Commission–Bob Robson (R-Chandler) and Bob Stump (R-Peoria). They all have been led to believe that the anti-marriage amendment will bring more hard-right voters to the polls in November, and they will benefit from it. It would appear it doesn’t matter to them how many LGBT people get hurt on their way to higher office.

Despite withering pressure from the hard right lobbyists, the bill never made it to the floor. Senate President Tim Bee (R-Tucson) apparently came to understand that a yes vote on the amendment would compromise the image of moderation and bipartisanship he has built up over the years, so he refused to bring it forth while at the same time saying to members of his own caucus that he would bring it forth in time.

His caucus members brought it forth for him on Wednesday when they voted to force it to the floor, but it did not receive the votes to carry at that time because the 16th vote was in a cabin in northern Arizona — Senator Karen Johnson (R-Mesa). She is not running for re-election, and had declared early in the session that her last day would be June 21. She left and planned not to return.

What she didn’t plan on was members of her church–including her bishop for Arizona–surrounding her cabin at all hours of the day and night praying for her that she be moved into returning to Phoenix to vote for the amendment.

The pressure worked, and she arrived at the Capitol on Friday, when the bill would be brought back up for reconsideration. Senator Tom O’Halleran (R-Sedona) was rumored to be gone as well, but he stayed to vote Yes. Sixteen votes in favor, including Tim Bee, were present, but we found out that two of them, Senator Pam Gorman (R-Anthem) and Karen Johnson, had plane flights out of town that evening and would be gone by 7pm.

So we forces of reason had our mission — drag things out until those two were gone, then adjourn sine die. For reasons way too complicated to explain in this already voluminous missive, we had to filibuster in the House and in the Senate, without making it appear we were actually filibustering. Rep. Sinema served as field general, and she picked four of us to do the talking, based on the fact that we always did a lot of talking and we didn’t want others to catch on to what we were doing.

The four were Reps. Prezelski (D-South Tucson), Ableser (D-Tempe), Ulmer (D-Yuma), and me. We asked a whole lot of questions in caucus (at one point we stretched out discussion of two of the bills to 40 minutes), in Committee of the Whole, and in explaining our votes in third read and final passage. We were so convincing that certain other members of our own caucus who were not in on the plan began to openly mock us for talking too long and told us to sit down and shut up. In the end we were able to extend debate past 7pm.

Our colleagues in the Senate were doing the same thing on the floor, but things were not going so well. Republicans began suspending Senate rules left and right to deprive the Democrats of talking time, and in one case suspended an entire calendar of bills that had already been passed, a move that had the effect of killing them. People called each other names and nearly got into shoving matches. Senators cried, while other senators openly laughed at those who cried.

Decorum broke down almost completely as the torchbearers for the “moral majority” followed a scorched-earth policy in their single-minded quest to take away rights from LGBT people. After 7pm, it became clear that Gorman and Johnson had no intention to leave to make their planes, and by 7:20, the filibuster could hold out no longer.

The vote was called for through a series of rule suspensions, and voting finally proceeded. Senator Carolyn Allen (R-Scottsdale) left in disgust before the vote. Senator Paula Aboud (D-Tucson), the only open lesbian in the Senate, talked about the power of the love between her and her partner, and asked the other senators, “Why are you afraid of our love? Are you afraid of me? Do I scare you?” Every Republican (besides Carolyn Allen) voted yes, then turned their backs and left the floor in the middle of Aboud’s speech.

After all had voted except President Bee, the tally stood at 15 in favor. Weighing in last, Bee explained his vote. He hammered the Center for Arizona Policy and its tactics, calling the issue divisive and saying that the lobbyists in favor of the amendment had “confronted members in hostile ways and coerced them.”

Many of us watching held our breath, wondering if Bee would step up courageously to do the right thing–not the easy thing. Would he vote No, and show that he puts policy above politics? Would he reject the Republican strategists who were convinced the anti-marriage amendment would help spur conservative voters to vote for him in his congressional race against Gabrielle Giffords?

His voice moved swiftly lower–almost to a whisper–as he concluded, “But my constituents want to vote on this, so I will vote Aye.”

With that, Tim Bee cast the deciding 16th vote, and in effect personally placed the anti-marriage amendment on the ballot once again, ensuring that the divisiveness will continue into the electorate at large.

This concluded the session like a punch to the gut. Exhausted and dispirited, we adjourned sine die shortly thereafter without doing much else. Bills that were in process died, including a vital bill to enact new tax credits for attracting huge solar energy plants to Arizona–plants and factories we are currently losing to California and Oregon in increasing numbers. But apparently, outlawing Gay marriage again was much more important than rebuilding our economy through renewable energy.

After lambasting CAP’s political tactics, Bee turned around and blamed his constituents for his cowardly vote. His constituents don’t deserve being scapegoated like this. They already voted on this in 2006 and gave a resounding “no” — 47.5% to 52.5%. That was wider than the statewide margin of 48.2% to 51.8%. And the Congressional district that he wants to represent come November also said “no” by a wider margin still: 45.4% to 54.6%. What part of “no” does Bee not understand?

Wingspan Statement on Arizona Senate Debacle

Jason Cianciotto, Wingspan’s Executive Director, reacted to yesterday’s shameful Senate vote with this statement:

In 2006, Arizona voters became the first in the nation to defeat an anti-marriage ballot measure. Today, our State Senate, led by President Tim Bee, rejected that democratic process in an attempt to distract voters from issues that truly have an impact on families, including the rising costs of food, gas, and healthcare.

Senator Bee is grossly mistaken if he thinks he can ride an anti-family agenda to victory in his campaign to unseat Gabrielle Giffords in Congressional District 8 — analysis of voting data from 2006 revealed that voters there rejected the first anti-marriage amendment by a 10 point margin, with 54.6% voting against Prop 107 and only 45.4% voting for it. This was an even wider margin than statewide results (51.8% vs. 48.2%).

The time has come for elected representatives and the anti-gay industry in Arizona to be held accountable for harming Arizona families. I came back home to Arizona two months ago ready for this fight. A political sea change is approaching this November, and our legislature is in store for a rude awakening. Just as we did in 2006, a broad coalition of Arizonans — young and old, men and women, gay and straight — will come together and defeat this ballot measure, again.

Arizona Senate Breaks Own Rules To Pass Anti-Marriage Amendment

The Republican-controlled Arizona Senate late yesterday broke its own rules to shut down debate and force a vote to place a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot.

According to Equality Arizona and the Arizona Daily Star, Sen Paula Aboud (D-Tucson) was engaged in a debate with Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D-Phoenix) on another tax bill in a move similar to a filibuster according to the Senate rules. During the debate, Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) and Majority Whip John Huppenthal (R-Chandler), among others, devised a scheme with committee chairman Jack Harper (R- rural district 4) to violate the rules of the Senate and the rights of Senators Aboud and Cheuvront.

Barbara McCullough-Jones and Sam Holdren of Arizona Equality describe what happened next:

In the middle of their discussion, Senator Harper turned off the microphones of Senators Paula Aboud (D-28) and Ken Cheuvront (D-15) and called on the Majority Leader to make a motion. Then, when Senators Aboud and Cheuvront loudly called for a Point of Order several times, even walking to the front desk where Senator Harper sat, he deliberately ignored their calls. To add insult to injury, these people attempted to justify their actions, even after the Senate President and other Senators admonished them for deliberately breaking the rules. Tonight’s actions of these and other Senators have forever tainted that body, and it’s important that we all let the people of Arizona know how these individuals acted so unethically.

The chamber broke down into chaos for the next twenty minutes when]the matter was finally brought before Senate President Tim Bee (R-Tucson) for resolution. Bee, who had been trying to keep the proposed amendment off the calendar, lambasted the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), the right-wing lobbying group behind the marriage amendment, for what he described as their divisive tactics, hostility, coercion and threats. He then publicly buckled under the pressure and became the constitutionally-mandated sixteenth vote to placed the measure on the ballot.

Sens. Aboud and Cheuvront are the only two openly gay members of the Arizona Senate. After the shouting was over, Sen. Aboud spoke again to the Senate:

“I just don’t understand how my personal, private relationship between two people affects anyone else in this room?

“Get your love off my back,” Aboud said. “Is your relationship with your family so fragile that you’re threatened by me?”

Today was a shameful day in the Senate’s history under Bee’s weak leadership. Bee is running for Congress to try to replace Gabrielle Giffords (D-Tucson) in a congressional district which voted against the 2006 attempt to write discrimination into the constitution by a wider margin than did voters statewide (45.4% to 54.6% in CD8, versus 48.2% to 51.8% statewide). During his term in the Senate, Bee represented a district which also defeated Prop 107 a margin wider than the statewide tally (47.5% to 52.5%).

Yesterday may well have marked the end of Bee’s political career. And with his shameful display of cowardice under pressure, it is an end well deserved.

Kolbe and Bee

“Tim Bee has demonstrated his toughness and his compassion, his ability to lead while at the same time listening to others. These are skills few people in public life have. We need Tim Bee working for us in Congress.” — Jim Kolbe (left), the gay former U.S. Congressman for the district Tim Bee is running in and the campaign’s “Honorary Chairman.”

Tim Bee was the sixteenth vote in the Arizona Senate’s shameless vote to put the anti-marriage amendment on the ballot yet again. Bee is running for the congressional seat that Kolbe once held. Kolbe voted for DOMA in 1996, a vote that led to his outing. I have heard him speak passionately against Prop 107 in 2006.

So what does Kolbe have to say about this? Is he ducking back into the closet again?

[Hat tip: Tucson Observer]