Marriage bill ignites passions

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The House delayed voting on the domestic violence bill and voted 104-4 in favor of a bill that would end the legal concept that a man and woman who live together for a period of time without being married can be considered married under the law. That bill now goes to the Senate.

The issue of whether the state's Constitution should be amended to define marriage as being between a man and a woman is up to you, the voter.

Groups on both sides of that issue, ranging from the League of the South to the American Civil Liberties Union, are making plans to wage a campaign to capture your vote on a referendum on the issue, which was approved by the House on Tuesday.

You'll have plenty of time to decide. The referendum isn't until November 2006, at the next general election.

It will be an uphill battle for the opponents, said Bruce Ransom, a political science professor at Clemson University.

"I think it's likely to be an issue that not only will, as you would expect, garner significant support from the evangelical Christian community in the state but I think it will cross racial lines," he said.

"The only thing I can say is I would be shocked if it did not pass in South Carolina."

Voters approved ballot initiatives designed to keep same-sex marriage from becoming legal in all 13 states where the question was on referendums, with most of them passing by overwhelming margins, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The referendums in other states also had the effect of energizing conservative voters in those states, which spilled over into other political races, Ransom said. That would tend to give the Republicans an advantage in the gubernatorial race next year, he said.

Thirty-three states, including South Carolina, already have statutes defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, according to the conference.

State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, who was one of three House members voting against putting the proposed constitutional amendment issue to a referendum, said South Carolina's law defining marriage, which she also opposed, is sufficient to address the issue. She also voted against the bill that created that law.

"I don't believe we ought to put discrimination of any sort into our Constitution," she said.

"I've been married almost 30 years and I am not threatened at all by people of the same sex wanting to marry each other," she said. "What about the divorce rates?"

Opponents don't harbor any illusions of being able to change the minds of the religious right, but they hope to win over enough people in the middle to kill the proposed amendment.

"I think this is a positive time for our movement," said Mike McVicker, youth coordinator for a Greenville organization called Affirm, which offers support groups for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and "questioning" people between the ages of 16 and 22. "A lot has happened on the national level and it's about time it hit South Carolina."

Her group plans to meet on Saturday with the South Carolina Equity Coalition, an umbrella organization of gay and lesbian rights groups in the state, to plan strategy, she said.

"This is a civil rights issue just as it was with African Americans and the feminist movement," she said. "This is not in any way going to protect marriage. And what we need to do is make people aware that this is denying civil rights to a group of people based on ignorance and bigotry."

On the other side is the state's largest religious organization, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, which considers this its No. 1 legislative priority.

"We're certainly going to be talking to our churches, mobilizing our people to vote for the referendum," said Joe Mack, director of public policy for the convention, which encompasses more than 750,000 Southern Baptists in the state.

Allowing same-sex marriage "would be the beginning of destroying our society," he said.

The Rev. W. Melvin Aiken, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, an independent Baptist church in Greenville, said he plans to use his pulpit and weekly radio program to encourage voters to support the proposed amendment.

"The foundation of the family is at stake here," he said. "A family is a husband, wife and children. I think marriage between a man and woman is the way God established it in Genesis."

The Rev. Jeffery Lamb, senior minister at the Greenville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, has been at hospital bedsides and seen same-sex couples through times of crisis.

"I've seen the deep commitment they have for one another," he said.

"For myself this is a human rights issue," he said. "I think gays and lesbians should have the right to build long-term, lasting covenants with one another that have to be respected by the state."

"I certainly don't expect other people of other religions to approve of that, but I do wish the state wouldn't discriminate against gays and lesbians in this fashion."

Katrina Brayall, 34, of Greenville, hopes the measure doesn't pass. She said she and her partner are raising her son together. "What's the difference? We live together. We support my son together," she said. "We have everything that we need."

One group that lobbied for the referendum is the Palmetto Family Council, which is aligned with Focus on the Family, the organization of conservative Christian psychologist Dr. James Dobson.

"We think that this amendment is merely a part of a statewide movement promoting marriage as the cornerstone of our society," said Dr. Oran P. Smith, president of the council.

Considering the vote in the Legislature — only four out of 170 lawmakers voted against having the referendum — he feels confident that South Carolinians will support it.

For some, it's a states' rights issue as well as a moral one.

South Carolina needs such an amendment to protect it against federal judges who might try to force the state to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, said Robert Hayes, state director of the League of the South.

"South Carolina is sovereign, and it is time that our legislators recognize that fact and tell the federal authorities ... when they have overstepped their constitutional authority," he said.

The Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina argued against the referendum before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee and expects that the measure will be challenged in the federal courts if it passes.

Denyse Williams, executive director of the state ACLU, said the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives citizens the right to marry, among the "privileges or immunities" of citizenship.

"So now what's going to happen is that the South Carolina Constitution is going to take away a right that's given in the U.S. Constitution," she said.

In states where such measures have passed, judges have used it to rule that domestic violence laws don't apply to heterosexual couples who aren't legally married.

"We are setting out on an education program to teach people what this amendment means to them, how it will create a second class citizenship for people who have gay and lesbian sexual orientation and how it will impact relationships in the straight community," she said.

For some, this is an issue of reaffirming natural moral law and thousands of years of human history.

"Marriage is ordained by God," said Brian Mershon, a member of Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Taylors. "It is a sacrament. It is not merely a convenient contractual relationship."

Staff writer Julie Howle contributed to this report.