Marriage amendment news

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, a traditional definition of marriage amendment qualified for the ballot in Florida this coming November. Now comes the latest project - getting it onto the ballot in California.

More than 100,000 California voters have signed a petition to let the people decide the definition of marriage, following a Focus on the Family mailing to 120,000 voters.

"To have this number of petitions come back signed, to be counted €¦ is truly extraordinary," Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council, told Family News in Focus.

But there's more work to do. In order to put marriage on the November ballot, more than 1 million signatures are needed by April 1.

Prentice is working with ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition of local, state and national groups, to join the 27 states that have constitutional protection for marriage. ProtectMarriage.com is putting forth a simple, one-sentence statement that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

Californians can find out how they can help here.

Just as with Florida, having a marriage amendment on the ballot in California will be a bost for the GOP this fall. So if you know anyone out that way, spread the word and encourage them to sign (and promote) the petition.

And just in case you think this sort of thing doesn't really matter, take a look at what's happened in New York recently.

A New York appellate court ruled Friday that valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized in New York, just as the law recognizes those of heterosexual couples solemnized elsewhere. Lawyers for both sides said the ruling applied to all public and private employers in the state.

Even though gay couples may not legally marry in New York, the appellate court in Rochester held that a gay couple's 2004 marriage in Canada must be respected under the state's longstanding "marriage recognition rule," and that an employer's denial of health benefits had discriminated against the couple on the basis of their sexual orientation.

In other words, just what conservatives have been saying all along (that judges will re-define marriage) will come to pass, unless the people of each state continue to take up the cause and legally define marriage as between a man and a woman in their state constitutions.