Saturday, April 5th, 2008...8:13 am
Why Kyrsten Sinema Rocks
It looks like Kyrsten Sinema managed to put the kibosh to the plans that top Republicans had to put gay marriage on the ballot again.
How’d she do it? Well, by amending the bill to codify protections for domestic partners. Protections which, by the way, polling shows a majority of Arizonans would be in support of.
Sinema had been planning the move for a couple of weeks, but didn’t reveal it to her colleagues until a caucus meeting moments before the Committee of the Whole meeting. She amended the bill to protect rights of hospital visitation, medical decisions, inheritance and funeral and burial arangements for unmarried couples.
Well, even though this is exactly the sort of thing that Arizonans would support (and the vote only two years ago on a ban on all recognition of domestic partnerships, gay or straight, seems to bear this out), the result was that Steve Yarbrough, a man who demonstrates his commitment to marriage by making his living as a divorce attorney, tried unsuccessfully to remove the amendment from the bill. Speaker Jim Weiers then pulled the bill from consideration. Observers assume that it will be introduced again later, since the legislature has nothing better to do, right?
This issue is so important to legislative leaders because, apparently, there are thousands of gay people forcing our youth into homosexual marriage. This is so important that early in the session even Tim Bee took a break from hobnobbing in DC and showed up to vote on this thing. The funny part is this little bit, taken from legislative staff’s summary of the bill:
Laws 1996, Chapter 348 stipulates that marriage between persons of the same sex is void and prohibited. Marriages that are considered void and prohibited in Arizona that are solemnized in another state or county are also not valid in Arizona. A.R.S. § 25-112 also specifies that parties residing in Arizona may not evade the laws of Arizona relating to marriage by going to another state or country for solemnization of the marriage.
That’s right…it is already illegal.
Not only that, there was an attempt to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage two years ago that failed (the only such attempt that has failed nationwide, by the way). Pollsters and other political observers pointed out that that particular initiative banned recognition of all domestic partnerships. Folks, as it turned out, were actually supportive of laws protecting those.
So, Sinema amended the bill not to legalize gay marriage, but to protect domestic partnerships, something Arizonans have demonstrated support for. What is the reaction of these folks? Were they happy that their bill now reflected the needs and wants of a broad portion of the constituency they are sworn to represent?
Naw.
They pulled the bill. Kinda makes you wonder what their real motives are. We owe a big thanks to Sinema for laying bare their true motives.
4 Comments
April 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Indeed Tedski, a big. big thank you to state Representative Sinema as well as the twenty-seven other Representatives who voted (a certain Tom Prezelski included) against Yarbrough’s amendment.
Also to point out that the “activist judges” so derided by Yarbrough, Speaker Weiers and the rest of the radical-right lunatic fringe, upheld ARS 25-101 and ARS 25-112, in the case Standhardt v. Superior Court in 2003 as well as the Arizona Supreme Court in 2004.
April 5th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Thanks, Kyrsten, and everybody else involved in this effort.
April 6th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I think that they were blinded by her hot geekyness.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:55 am
I disagree with Kyrsten on just about every issue but have to admit, she is HOT!!!
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